[CMake] functions as first class objects

[Michael Wild]

On 19. Nov, 2009, at 15:06 , Jed Brown wrote:

> Michael Wild wrote:
>
>> Not sure I'd like that... Instead of being more expressive, I think  
>> this
>> would be very confusing.
>
> This is not a some magic beast coming out of functional languages.  In
> fact, it's pretty hard to find a language that can't do this sort of
> thing, even older Fortrans let you pass functions.
>
> Jed

Yes, but that's something completely different! It's not like you're  
able to do (using your notation):

set(&tmp &install)
set(&install &add_executable)
set(&add_executable &tmp)

In C/C++ and to various extent in Fortran (depending on the version)  
you can pass around "function pointers". This is _not_ a function.  
There's no way of doing that in C/C++ or Fortran (that is, without  
using ugly preprocessor magic).


Michael