Odd Errors

[greg]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:

> "Side-effect" has the technical meaning in functional languages of any 
> change of state that isn't the creation and return of a function result.

Actually, the term has that meaning for all programming
languages. The main distinguishing feature of functional
languages is that there are *no* side effects.

The confusing thing is that in everyday English the term
implies something bad or unwanted (e.g. side effects of
a drug). That's not necessarily true of the technical
meaning -- often the side effect is exactly what we want,
as in the case of "append".

-- 
Greg