Talk:Unlambda

old talk
I think the article page should mention two things:

- that Unlambda had a great impact on a number of esoteric programming languages, and - that Unlambda is _not_ very pure, as a functional programming language.

opinions? --User:128.214.214.194 17:14, 29 Jul 2004


 * Please specify your points. What kind of impact on which languages and why is it not pure? You're free to add these straight in to the article yourself too... --ZeroOne 15:52, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * and  are impure. -- Dominus 15:51, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hey, nice work on rewriting the article, Dominus. :) I don't know any Unlambda myself but I'm willing to learn so this was a huge improvement. Could you check this sentence in the fifth paragraph: " represents the version of the identity function that has no such side effectl it is used here as a summy argument". You've obviously got a typo there but I don't know what it is supposed to say. :/ Please also add some headings, the text is now in a rather cumbersome junk. A list of all the commands in Unlambda with short descriptions would be nice at some point. --ZeroOne 15:52, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks; fixed. --Dominus 15:51, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * It's still not especially good in my opinion. --67.172.99.160 20:13, 16 October 2005 (UTC)


 * How unfortunate you have not been granted access to change it for the better, then. -- Dominus 14:52, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Is there a connection between Unlambda and SKI combinator calculus? --Jesse Ruderman


 * Yes. -- Dominus 04:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Is Joy really a "similar language"? It's not esoteric, perhaps not really even experimental, it has named functions instead of just few primitives, it's stack-based, and while it does have combinators I fail to see any other interesting similarities. 213.243.161.50 (talk) 10:51, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The original language listed there was Lazy K. "Joy" seems to be a typo for Jot (as in Iota and Jot). The Lazy K language is much more similar to Unlambda, but as for non-esoteric languages, Scheme would be a good example. The Call-with-current-continuation function originated in Scheme, and it's easy to implement the SKI combinators in Scheme. In fact, Scheme is what the Unlambda interpreter was originally written in. 69.54.60.34 (talk) 20:58, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Pure or impure?
"The notation .x denotes a function which takes one argument and returns it unchanged, printing the single character x as a side effect when it is invoked." Looks impure to me. Actually, I'm going to see if this language is mentioned in any WP:SECONDARY sources, and in what way. Pcap ping  06:48, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Verification/sources
It's rather difficult to verify much of this article, as it seems almost entirely based on a Japanese book, which isn't freely available online. It's certainly a valid source, and there's no reason to doubt the article follows it faithfully, but please post any other reliable sources if you find any.

Currently cited sources:
 * Felix-Hernandez Campos (1 April 2002), Lecture 28: More on functional programming, University of North Carolina COMP144
 * Felix-Hernandez Campos (1 April 2002), Lecture 28: More on functional programming, University of North Carolina COMP144
 * Felix-Hernandez Campos (1 April 2002), Lecture 28: More on functional programming, University of North Carolina COMP144

While most blogs wouldn't count as a reliable source, Chu-Carroll's is a published author in the field, and I think meets Wikipedia's "expert" requirements for self-published sources.

I think Campos' lecture notes should not be relied upon as a reliable source; Campos was a grad student, and the April 1 date suggests it may have been an April Fool's joke (e.g., "it is powerful", "it is the ideal language for abstraction elimination"; this could be serious, or a spoof of overstated language claims). I don't see any sentence in this article that is supported by the lecture notes, so it could probably be removed without an effect on the article, though perhaps it was the basis for parts of sentences (e.g., that it is Turing complete, or that it allows abstraction elimination).

原 悠's book was republished this year; Google preview doesn't show the text, but does show the table of contents, which list the 12-page section on Unlambda as a subsection of "Esoteric Languages":
 * (Later publication of already-cited book; Google preview is limited to table of contents, which shows

Other reliable sources I found that mention it had very minor coverage:
 * (It is just included among a large list of programming languages, in a line for languages beginning with a U).
 * (It is just included among a large list of programming languages, in a line for languages beginning with a U).
 * (It is just included among a large list of programming languages, in a line for languages beginning with a U).
 * (It is just included among a large list of programming languages, in a line for languages beginning with a U).

––Agyle (talk) 20:07, 30 June 2014 (UTC)