Discussion on: What language features/concepts do insiders of the language love and outsiders hate?

[Geoff Davis]

Love first class functions. I miss that perhaps the most when programming in the other scripting language I use the most: PHP.

[Max Cerrina]

...doesn't PHP have first class functions? I thought first-class functions meant you could use them as arguments or assign them to a variable, e.g.:

<?php

$some_function_holding_var = 
        function($inner_arg) 
        { 
            echo "I'm a function saying $inner_arg!"; 
        };

$some_function_holding_var("hello");

// okay, not very random
$random_array = [1,2,3,4];

array_walk($random_array, 
        function(&$number) 
        {
            ++$number;
        });

print_r($random_array);

$pick_func_based_on_time = 
    function ($some_time) 
    {
        $even_function = function () {echo "even";};
        $odd_function = function () {echo "odd";};

        switch ($some_time % 2) 
        {
            case 0:
                return $even_function;
                break;
            case 1:
                return $odd_function;
                break;
            default:
                echo "I broke math...";
                break;
        }
    };

$chosen_function = $pick_func_based_on_time(microtime(true));

$chosen_function();

I'm honestly just curious as to if there's a meaning of first-class functions I'm missing. (And enjoyed the chance to do ridiculous code stuff.)

[Promise Tochi]

That's pretty much it. First class function means you can use functions wherever normal language primitives will go. It can be returned, used in expressions...