A Quickie - Any mnemonic for alpha beta eta conversions

[Totaram Sanadhya]

I googled on web and groups for "mnemonic for alpha beta eta
conversions" without any luck.

I am sure many of you would give some good mnemonics.

If there are other menmonics that related to other concepts in
functional programming, please also add them. It would help generation
of students.

Try to send Followup-to: comp.lang.functional

Swami

[Totaram Sanadhya]

On Oct 31, 1:56 pm, Totaram Sanadhya

Post by Totaram Sanadhya
I googled on web and groups for "mnemonic for alpha beta eta
conversions" without any luck.
I am sure many of you would give some good mnemonics.
If there are other menmonics that related to other concepts in
functional programming, please also add them. It would help generation
of students.
Try to send Followup-to: comp.lang.functional
Swami

These definitions do get mixed up in my mind so its good to know why
they are called alpha, beta, eta ...

[Dirk Thierbach]

Post by Totaram Sanadhya
On Oct 31, 1:56 pm, Totaram Sanadhya

Post by Totaram Sanadhya
I googled on web and groups for "mnemonic for alpha beta eta
conversions" without any luck.
I am sure many of you would give some good mnemonics.
If there are other menmonics that related to other concepts in
functional programming, please also add them. It would help generation
of students.
Try to send Followup-to: comp.lang.functional
Swami

These definitions do get mixed up in my mind so its good to know why
they are called alpha, beta, eta ...

I don't think there are official mnemonics.

One way to remember them is maybe like this:

alpha-reduction is about renaming of variables, i.e. "changing the ALPHAbet".

eta-reduction is about EXtensionality: a function is characterized
by its action on arguments, so if you have a function "f", you can
add another layer of "apply to the argument".

beta-reduction is the workhorse, where the interesting things happen.

delta-reductions are about additionally DEFined functions.

- Dirk

[Rivka Miller]

On Oct 31, 1:59 pm, Totaram Sanadhya

Post by Totaram Sanadhya
On Oct 31, 1:56 pm, Totaram Sanadhya

Post by Totaram Sanadhya
I googled on web and groups for "mnemonic for alpha beta eta
conversions" without any luck.
I am sure many of you would give some good mnemonics.
If there are other menmonics that related to other concepts in
functional programming, please also add them. It would help generation
of students.
Try to send Followup-to: comp.lang.functional
Swami

These definitions do get mixed up in my mind so its good to know why
they are called alpha, beta, eta ...

alpha is the most elementary operation of changing the dummy ALPHAbets
to prevent namespace collisions.

beta is the next more important operation involving substitution for
FREE variables or alphaBETs.

Eta is extensionality (mouthful) or Effect based Equivalence, rather
than definition or notion based. I think it was suggested by Dirchlet
with inspiration based on fourier series.

I dont know delta or an example of it.

[Dirk Thierbach]

Post by Rivka Miller
I dont know delta or an example of it.

Delta-rules are for additional primitives. For example, one could
define additional constants "true", "false", and "if", and two delta-rules

if true x y --> x
if false x y --> y

(Yes, you can already simulate that, it's just a simple example)

- Dirk