Abstract

The interaction between lexical scoping of variables and first-class functions, as found in all functional programming languages, is rather subtle and interesting, especially if you want to compile the language to assembly code. For some reason, computer architects have yet to include first-class functions with lexical scoping in modern computers! In this talk I’ll try to capture the essence of compiling from a language with lexical scoping and first-class functions to a language without lexical scoping (but unusually, still with first-class functions).