Talk:Anonymous recursion

Cleanup

How is this article not redundant with the Fixed point combinator article?

This one does't seem to add anything new and has very serious grammatical and markup problems.

In particular, the introductory paragraph is very hard to read, especially with overuse of "in terms of" and "-argument". The sentences are far too long -- more like a high-level journal article than an encyclopedia, and the function markup in the introduction doesn't display properly.

The example is good, but is very informal -- it needs to be more encyclopedic in tone.

The Y combinator section is just plain confusing -- the central point is ill-defined and the derivation is informal and unfocused. The metaphorical explanation at the end, especially, is misleading and unnecessary.

In short, flagging for cleanup.

--bmills 18:51, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

>>How is this article not redundant with the Fixed point combinator article?<<

The introduction and the example are independent of the Y combinator: only the "Y combinator" section should overlap with the fixed point combinator article. The "Y combinator" section was attached as an afterthought, it is not really necessary for the article: only the top part is necessary (if this article should survive at all). This article offers a way of defining anonymous recursion which is alternative to using the Y combinator: the last section just shows how the two approaches are related. —AugPi 20:10, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

>> the function markup in the introduction doesn't display properly<<

True: I have converted it to TeX. —AugPi 20:29, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

>>The metaphorical explanation at the end, especially, is misleading and unnecessary.<<

Yes: it goes off in a tangent. I have removed it. —AugPi 20:31, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]