Programming Languages: Concepts and Implementation

8.6 Thematic Takeaways

• First-class, lexical closures are an important primitive construct for creating programming abstractions (e.g., partial function application and currying).

• Higher-order functions capture common, typically recursive, programming patterns as functions.

• Currying a higher-order function enhances its power because such a function can be used to automatically define new functions.

• Curried, higher-order functions also provide the glue that enables you to combine these atomic functions to construct more complex functions.

• HOFs + Currying ⇝ Concise Functions + Reconfigurable Programs

• HOFs + Currying (Curried HOFs) ⇝ Modular Programming