Re: functional programming is great, but why lists?

[Shriram Krishnamurthi <sk@cs.brown.edu>]

Michael Vanier wrote:

> Thus, I don't understand Olin's comment about lambda not being sufficient,
> unless lambda + lists are also not sufficient.  I'm not being facetious; I
> know this is hopelessly inefficient, but we're talking about what's
> necessary in principle.

... and Olin's not.  That's your difference.  (I should have provided
some context.  Olin was referring to the creation of libraries for
practical Scheme programming.)

If that answer isn't good enough, I'll give you one more:

  Are there type errors in the lambda calculus?

  Should there be type errors in a useful, realistic programming
    language?

There you go.

Shriram