[racket-dev] guidelines on error messages -- please send feedback

Oh, I'm all in favor of skipping "identifier".  But using the word "variable" both for global variables (i.e. constants) and for function parameters strikes me as asking for confusion.  They're introduced by different syntax, they get their values in different ways, they have different scopes, etc.

On Jun 3, 2011, at 8:14 PM, Shriram Krishnamurthi wrote:

> Kathi is understating it.  There are TWO notions of "variable".  In
> algebra, in f(x) = x^2, x is called a "variable" because it varies
> across invocations of f

Is the "x" in "f(x)" indeed consistently called a "variable" in high school math classes?  Or do they also use words like "parameter" or "argument"?


Stephen Bloch
sbloch at adelphi.edu