Re: constants v variables (was Re: if statements)

["Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org>]

"Florian Weimer" <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote in message
news:87em0ley6l.fsf@deneb.enyo.de...
: Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com> writes:
:
: > > Thanks for highlighting this one - I've been bleeting on about this
locally
: > > (and even in c.l.a. once!) for ages to collegues.
: >
: > Me, too.  IMHO, constant should be the *default*, and you should have to
: > say "var" or something to declare a variable; then people would be less
: > likely to make this mistake.  In fact, that *is* the way parameters work
: > ("in" is the default).  It seems inconsistent that object declarations
: > work differently.
:
: Following these lines, you probably should mandate proper tail
: recursion as well. ;-)

Oddly enough, I'm learning Erlang, where assignments (bindings) do produce
constants, and there are no variable declarations per se. The Erlang book
also promotes (but does not require) tail recursion. Once you get used to
it, there's a certain elegance to a functional language of this type.