[erlang-questions] noob namespace question

[Siraaj Khandkar]

On Dec 12, 2012, at 13:14, Rustom Mody <rustompmody@REDACTED> wrote:

> 
> 
> On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 11:30 PM, Loïc Hoguin <essen@REDACTED> wrote:
> On 12/12/2012 06:58 PM, Rustom Mody wrote:
> In Erlang variables start with a capital letter, atoms start with a
> lowercase letter.
> Functions also start with lowercase.
> 
> How does Erlang distinguish atoms and functions? Especially in the
> context of higher order functions.?
> 
> [Disclaimer: noob to Erlang but not functional programming or Lisp.
> Erlang atoms look quite close to Lisp atoms though also different...]
> 
> Function names are atoms.
> 
> Funs don't have a name (yet) so there's no naming happening there.
> 
> I dont understand. Let me try and be more explicit about my concern.
> 
> Let h be a higher-order function of one argument (h/1)
> 
> Now in the call h(foo)
> How does Erlang know whether foo is a function or an atom?

Syntactic context :)

Parser is a state machine that interprets tokens based on current parse state/context. 

Generally, I like to think of atoms as first class building blocks that references to modules and functions (among other things) can be constructed out of.
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