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I think it's that you can calculate the value, but you can't (or can't as easily) create a new function that is the derivative of another function, and pass that around.

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yeah you can return a new function, but it is less easy than in lisp, or F#

but in general a lot of that stuff in the article seems mundane today, you have to imagine seeing it in 1983

> yeah you can return a new function

How?

You could do it with JIT compilation or self-modifying code. I'm not sure if there's a simpler way in C

You can exec a C compiler and use dlopen on the generated object file, or use libtcc[1].

https://www.bellard.org/tcc/

That makes sense, thanks. And as others have mentioned it's therefore not easy to compose higher order derivatives.

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