SYNTAX ONLY: renaming

[haskell-request@cs.glasgow.ac.uk]

Date: 31 May 91 12:37
From: haskell-request@cs.glasgow.ac.uk
Sender: Ian Young <I.M.Young@computer-science.birmingham.ac.uk>
To: haskell@cs.glasgow.ac.uk
References: <13103.9105311000@koro.dcs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Subject: SYNTAX ONLY: renaming

Original-Via: uk.ac.bham.cs.new; Fri, 31 May 91 12:29:52 BST

Disclaimer: I'd view myself as a possible future user of Haskell. (Once
there's a stable implementation that's comparable in speed / memory
frugality to M______...) I am not involved in implementing functional
languages in any way.

Given that Simon thinks that renaming (well, original-naming, really) is
only of use once in a while, it seems a shame to me to change a
perfectly good existing syntax for function composition. The idea of two
different infix operators --  "." and " . " -- is one I find difficult
to stomach (I can't honestly tell you whether I use "f.g" or "f . g"
currently; probably either).

While Philip's first suggestion of "f 'o' g" (or should that be "f `o` g"?
Philip?) makes a fair about of sense, I still can't say I'd want to change
from the existing syntax. Is it more important for future versions of
Haskell to be consistent with existing languages on original-naming than
consistant with previous versions of Haskell on function composition?
(This is not a rhetorical question.)

Ian Young.

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