Talk:Call a function: Difference between revisions
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:::A constant is not a function. Functions may produce different results at different times, whether or not they require arguments. For example time related functions, random functions, or device control functions may return different results at different times. [[User:Markhobley|Markhobley]] 19:12, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
:::In stateful languages, a function that takes no arguments is an entirely relevant concept; the environment may still vary. Purely stateless functional languages would of course have no-argument functions be constants. It's all a matter of how explicit things are made, and ''that'' is something that language designers (and their groupies) have argued over uselessly for many years. –[[User:Dkf|Donal Fellows]] 14:48, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
::::Personally, I was concerned about documenting a language with state which offered two different kinds of concepts of "a function that takes no arguments": constants being one kind of concept, and ignoring the argument list (or requiring it be empty) being the other kind of concept. And since the description assumed details about the implementation language, rather than spell them out, it was not obvious to me whether I should be documenting both kinds of concept. The responses here, however, suggested that I not document how to call constants. --[[User:Rdm|Rdm]] 15:04, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
My “Huh?” about this task is that it asks for all sorts of things rather than being something more focussed, making it awkward to properly deal with from the perspective of someone trying to an implementation ''or'' from someone looking things up. Would it be better done as multiple sub-tasks? (How many of those sub-tasks actually exist already?) –[[User:Dkf|Donal Fellows]] 14:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
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