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> Continuations are well known to be completely mystifying. Could you elaborate on what leads you to think this?

• tome 7y ago
  I don't believe that continuations are a corner of programming language theory that is well-loved and and well-understood by programmers at large, are they? Even amongst experienced functional programmers they seem to be thought of as rather difficult. Oleg Kiselyov has written extensively on them but his work has not been brought to the masses in the same way that his work in iteratees has. http://okmij.org/ftp/continuations/index.html http://okmij.org/ftp/continuations/index.html
  • bjz_ 7y ago
    Ahhh! Right! See, the context here is important. Continuations are pretty widely known and important in the context of programming language implementation and theory, which is why I was confused by your comment. In the context where this paper was presented (to programming language researchers), making the link between delimited continuations _would_ demystify a bunch, and could allow for transferring of knowledge and techniques between the fields.
    • tome 7y ago
      Having looked again, the authors do explain why they believe that continuations (as opposed to simply higher-order functions) are necessary. See my other comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22347428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22347428.