Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 23:05:30 -0600 (CST) From: David Scheidt <dscheidt@enteract.com> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: Tani Hosokawa <unknown@riverstyx.net>, Jonathon McKitrick <jcm@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>, Alfred Perlstein <bright@wintelcom.net>, Roelof Osinga <roelof@nisser.com>, Kris Kennaway <kris@hub.freebsd.org>, freebsd-chat <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Yahoo hacked last night Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.96.991208230511.72276B-100000@shell-3.enteract.com> In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.19991208204754.048bd8e0@localhost>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wed, 8 Dec 1999, Brett Glass wrote: > Actually, "thunk" is a general term for a small snippet of code > that the compiler must generate to create a connection between > two parts of a program. I learned it in the context of functional languages which do lazy-evaluation. A function call didn't need to return the actual result of the function, but rather just a promise that the result would be evaluated in the future, but only if the result were really needed for something. For all intents, the thunk returned could be used in any way that the actual result could. So it is easy to right an O(1) function to find the Nth digit of Pi. Printing your result, though, could take a really long time. David Scheidt To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.NEB.3.96.991208230511.72276B-100000>