Lazy Evaluation
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Lazy evaluation is a fascinating and powerful concept in computer science, particularly prominent in functional programming languages. At its core, lazy evaluation is an evaluation strategy that delays the computation of an expression until its value is actually needed. This approach contrasts sharply with eager evaluation (also known as strict evaluation), where expressions are evaluated as soon as they are bound to a variable. Imagine preparing ingredients for a complex recipe: eager evaluation is like chopping all your vegetables and measuring all your spices before you even turn on the stove, while lazy evaluation is like prepping each ingredient just before it's required in a step. This fundamental difference has profound implications for how programs are written and how they perform.
