I still don't fully understand what the actual use cases of Lambda is, could you help spell it out for me?

Wettining wrote:

I still don't fully understand what the actual use cases of Lambda is, could you help spell it out for me?

You're necroposting, but whatever. The lambda calculus is a theoretical model of computation devised by Alonzo Church. Because it's minimal, it can be easily formalized and mathematically studied. The LC isn't itself supposed to be an application programming language, but Lisp, the MLs, and Haskell use it as a foundation.

This project is broken, but it was meant to be a interpreter of a certain notation of lambda calculus.
Lambda calculus in its pure form isn't used often, but anonymous functions, what lambdas build, can be useful.

TheAspiringHacker wrote:

Wettining wrote:

I still don't fully understand what the actual use cases of Lambda is, could you help spell it out for me?

You're necroposting, but whatever. The lambda calculus is a theoretical model of computation devised by Alonzo Church. Because it's minimal, it can be easily formalized and mathematically studied. The LC isn't itself supposed to be an application programming language, but Lisp, the MLs, and Haskell use it as a foundation.

But why do they use it as a foundation? I really don't see the point of using Lambdas or what function they do in general programming languages.
Is it just used for ‘scientific’ purposes or could you for example build a physics engine out of it?

Wettining wrote:

TheAspiringHacker wrote:

Wettining wrote:

I still don't fully understand what the actual use cases of Lambda is, could you help spell it out for me?

You're necroposting, but whatever. The lambda calculus is a theoretical model of computation devised by Alonzo Church. Because it's minimal, it can be easily formalized and mathematically studied. The LC isn't itself supposed to be an application programming language, but Lisp, the MLs, and Haskell use it as a foundation.

But why do they use it as a foundation? I really don't see the point of using Lambdas or what function they do in general programming languages.
Is it just used for ‘scientific’ purposes or could you for example build a physics engine out of it?

The lambda calculus serves the same purpose as the Turing machine. It isn't supposed to be a usuable programming language itself, it's supposed to be a theoretical model of computation. Think mathematics, not science.

Indirect uses of the lambda calculus:

• On Hacker News recently, a post about deep learning in OCaml reached the front page, and OCaml, as an ML, is based on the lambda calculus.
  
• Lisp is based on the lambda calculus, and JavaScript was conceived as Scheme for the browser. JavaScript's function literals come from the lambda calculus.
  
• The dependently typed lambda calculus (not the untyped lambda calculus here) can be used to write proofs given that everything halts. Coq, Agda, and Idris are proof assistants based on the dependently typed lambda calculus.
  
• C++ and Java now have tacked-on lambda expressions.