Thus far, we have only used Full Metal Jacket as a calculator. To go any further, we need to know how to define functions.
The calculation of
sqrt(8.0 * 8.0 + 15.0 * 15.0)
shown in the previous tutorial can be wrapped up into the function
hypotenuse: 
Notation
The large rectangle enclosing the code is called an
enclosure. This is equivalent to the lambda special form
in Lisp dialects, and there are analogous constructs in other functional
languages and Smalltalk. Its name describes its appearance, and was chosen
because it sounds similar to closure. On the enclosure's top and
bottom are gates. Those on the top are ingates, and those on
the bottom are outgates. The gates with pink inputs are used to add
gates while the function is being defined.
An example of code which calls hypotenuse, and
its output, are:
© Copyright Donald Fisk 2015