Notice in these fragments that once we return from inside the call to `factory`, the `free_var` mutable variable is no longer accessible, except through the helper functions `getter` and `setter` that we've provided. This is another way in which a thunk like `getter` can be useful: it still has access to the `free_var` reference cell that was created when it was, because its free variables are interpreted relative to the context in which `getter` was built, even if that context is otherwise no longer accessible. What `getter ()` evaluates to, however, will very much depend on *when* we evaluate it---in particular, it will depend on which calls to the corresponding `setter` were evaluated first.
##Referential opacity##
Notice in these fragments that once we return from inside the call to `factory`, the `free_var` mutable variable is no longer accessible, except through the helper functions `getter` and `setter` that we've provided. This is another way in which a thunk like `getter` can be useful: it still has access to the `free_var` reference cell that was created when it was, because its free variables are interpreted relative to the context in which `getter` was built, even if that context is otherwise no longer accessible. What `getter ()` evaluates to, however, will very much depend on *when* we evaluate it---in particular, it will depend on which calls to the corresponding `setter` were evaluated first.
##Referential opacity##