Cannot create apply function with static language?

Question

I have read that with a statically typed language like Scala or Haskell there is no way to create or provide a Lisp apply function:

(apply #\'+ (lis         


        

Answer 1

The benefit of a static language is that it would prevent you to apply a function to the arguments of incorrect types, so I think it's natural that it would be harder to do.

Given a list of arguments and a function, in Scala, a tuple would best capture the data since it can store values of different types. With that in mind tupled has some resemblance to apply:

scala> val args = (1, "a")
args: (Int, java.lang.String) = (1,a)

scala> val f = (i:Int, s:String) => s + i
f: (Int, String) => java.lang.String = 

scala> f.tupled(args)
res0: java.lang.String = a1

For function of one argument, there is actually apply:

scala> val g = (i:Int) => i + 1
g: (Int) => Int = 

scala> g.apply(2)
res11: Int = 3

I think if you think as apply as the mechanism to apply a first class function to its arguments, then the concept is there in Scala. But I suspect that apply in lisp is more powerful.