Re: Wording discussion (was Re: technology discussion)

Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:

On 27.09.2024 06:28, Keith Thompson wrote:

Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> writes:

[ pondering about "call by ..." vs. "pass by ..." ]

 
I won't ask you to reply to this.  I think it's unlikely that further
discussion is going to be productive.  *If* you can explain *in one
short paragraph" why you think "call by" is better than "pass by",
that might be useful, but I'm not optimistic.  Since you and I
have a tendency to talk past each other, perhaps someone else can
summarize the issue, but again, I'm not asking anyone to spend the
time to do that.

>
(First, I agree with your interpretation of the use of "call"
and "pass" in K&R's book; to me that explanation makes sense.)
>
As a non-native speaker - and since I don't mind either of the
two wordings used, or choose it depending on context[*] - I'm
just asking that out of curiosity...
>
It just occurred to me that there's a lexically similar "call
for sth." (in the sense of "require", or maybe "ask for sth").
This is less technical - which might be one problem of the
discussion here: technical vs. semantical interpretations.
Could that be the reason for historic use of "call-by"? (I'm
not sure whether "call for a parameter value" makes sense in a
debate that is technically oriented or whether "call by value"
could be sort of an abbreviation at all, in the first place.
As said; non-native speaker here.
Here I'm only interested in the non-technical English language
view to better understand where that "call-by" might come from
[from an English language perspective].)
>
Janis
>
[*] E.g., I pass the parameter using a call-by-value mechanism,
or simplified, I pass the parameter by value.

I think I covered most of this in the long followup I just posted.

In modern usage, functions are "called", and arguments are "passed".
Phrases like "call-by-value" are, I think, a relic of earlier usage,
particularly in the Algol 60 Report, in which functions/procedure
and parameters were both "called".  I don't know whether the Algol
60 Report was the origin of this usage, or whether it was already
common usage at the time.

(And I probably could have replaced my entire post with the above
paragraph.)

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */