# Why the free variables in function body don't get bound at function definition time?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-the-free-variables-in-function-body-dont-get-bound-at-function-definition-time/128860>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Tags:** offtopic, design\
**Created:** [May 9, 2025, 3:29am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-the-free-variables-in-function-body-dont-get-bound-at-function-definition-time/128860 "2025-05-09T03:29:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 49

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**Author:** ![stevengj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stevengj/32/71_2.png) [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 6:01pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-the-free-variables-in-function-body-dont-get-bound-at-function-definition-time/128860/49 "2025-05-12T18:01:58Z")

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I’m not sure that this thread is going anywhere productive:

- The “why” of this is that lexical scoping is a commonplace choice that is widely adopted and widely understood across many programming languages. Yes, other choices are possible, but Julia adopting a conventional choice is not mysterious.
- Julia’s basic scoping semantics are not going to change at this point: [PSA: Julia is not at that stage of development anymore](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/psa-julia-is-not-at-that-stage-of-development-anymore/44872) — you’re free to go off and implement your own programming language, but this is not the forum for it.

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