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Improve documentation around func and method #19207

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merged 15 commits into from
Dec 4, 2021
31 changes: 29 additions & 2 deletions doc/tut1.rst
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -595,8 +595,10 @@ Procedures

To define new commands like `echo <system.html#echo,varargs[typed,]>`_
and `readLine <io.html#readLine,File>`_ in the examples, the concept of a
*procedure* is needed. (Some languages call them *methods* or *functions*.)
In Nim new procedures are defined with the `proc` keyword:
*procedure* is needed. You might be used to them being called *methods* or
*functions* in other languages, but Nim
`differentiates these concepts <tut1.html#procedures-funcs-and-methods>`_. In
Nim, new procedures are defined with the `proc` keyword:

.. code-block:: nim
:test: "nim c $1"
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -874,6 +876,31 @@ The example also shows that a proc's body can consist of a single expression
whose value is then returned implicitly.


Funcs and methods
-----------------

As mentioned in the introduction, Nim differentiates between procedures,
functions, and methods, defined by the `proc`, `func`, and `method` keywords
respectively. In some ways, Nim is a bit more pedantic in its definitions than
other languages.

Functions are closer to the concept of a pure mathematical
function, which might be familiar to you if you've ever done functional
programming. Essentially they are procedures with additional limitations set on
them: they can't access global state (except `const`) and can't produce
side-effects. The `func` keyword is basically an alias for `proc` tagged
with `{.noSideEffects.}`. Functions can still change their mutable arguments
however, which are those marked as `var`, along with any `ref` objects.
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Suggested change
Functions are closer to the concept of a pure mathematical
function, which might be familiar to you if you've ever done functional
programming. Essentially they are procedures with additional limitations set on
them: they can't access global state (except `const`) and can't produce
side-effects. The `func` keyword is basically an alias for `proc` tagged
with `{.noSideEffects.}`. Functions can still change their mutable arguments
however, which are those marked as `var`, along with any `ref` objects.
Functions are essentially procedures with additional limitations set on them:
they can't access global state (except `const`) and can't produce side-effects.
This puts Nim functions closer to the concept of a mathematical function, which
might be familiar to you if you've ever done functional programming. The main
benefit of the imposed limits is that it's much easier to reason about the code
with minimized interdependence of its various parts, as data flows directly
through a function from its arguments to its output. The other notable advantage
is that the self-contained nature of a function makes it inherently more
portable and easier to test.
Even though these benefits apply to Nim functions, it's important to keep in
mind that a `func` can still change its mutable arguments: those marked as `var`
along with `ref` objects (which possess interior mutability). This still allows
functions to have additional outputs beside the return value, making them not as
"pure" as their mathematical counterparts.
Technically, the `func` keyword is a shorthand alias for `proc` tagged with
`{.noSideEffects.}`.

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One small typo: it's "possess", not "posses".


Unlike procedures, methods are dynamically dispatched. This sounds a bit
complicated, but it is a concept closely related to inheritance and object oriented
programming. If you overload a procedure (two procedures with the same name but
of different types or with different sets of arguments are said to be overloaded), the procedure to use is determined
at compile-time. Methods, on the other hand, depend on objects that inherit from
the `RootObj`. This is something that is covered in much greater depth in
the `second part of the tutorial<tut2.html#object-oriented-programming-dynamic-dispatch>`_.


Iterators
=========

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