Mathematical Purity
In Joy, the meaning function is a homomorphism from the syntactic monoid onto the semantic monoid. That is, the syntactic relation of concatenation of symbols maps directly onto the semantic relation of composition of functions. It is a homomorphism instead of an isomorphism because it is onto but not one-to-one, that is, some sequences of symbols have the same meaning (e.g. "dup +" and "2 *") but no symbol has more than one meaning.
In other words, "The concatenation of two programs denotes the composition of the functions denoted by the two programs".
Its library routines mirror those of ISO C, though the current implementation is not easily extensible with functions written in C.
Read more about this topic: Joy (programming Language)
Famous quotes containing the words mathematical and/or purity:
“As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and that reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“You will perceive by my preaching that I am growing old: it is the privilege of years, and I am sure you will pardon it from the purity of it’s motives.”
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