Python from Wise Guy's Viewpoint
Joachim Durchholz
joachim.durchholz at web.de
Sat Oct 25 16:58:12 EDT 2003
prunesquallor at comcast.net wrote:
> Are they happy with something like this?
>
> (defun black-hole (x)
> #'black-hole)
>
> (for non lispers, the funny #' is a namespace operator.
> The black-hole function gobbles an argument and returns
> the black-hole function.)
Now *that* is a real challenge, and Haskell indeed doesn't allow this
(it says "black_hole has an infinite type", which is not a surprise: the
literal transliteration of the above function would be
black_hole _ = black_hole
and the only solution to the above equation would require that
black_hole has a countably infinite number of _ parameters).
However, what purpose would the function serve? I'm pretty sure that
there's an equivalent idiom in Haskell, but I can't tell unless I know
what black_hole is good for.
Regards,
Jo
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