[ghc-steering-committee] Proposal #302: `\of`

[Alejandro Serrano Mena]

Hi all,
I agree with the sentiment. I think adding \of would be a nice way to clean
up the language (in the same way that now StandaloneKindSignatures allow us
to remove the weirder CUSKs), but unless we have some deprecation policy
for extensions, this may confuse people more than help.

It's particularly bad that we cannot make this simply an extension of
\case, due to the example pointed out in the thread: \case Just x -> x.
Could we maybe think of some way to disambiguate those cases? I'm going to
ask this in the thread too.

Regards,
Alejandro

El vie., 4 sept. 2020 a las 0:02, Richard Eisenberg (<rae at richarde.dev>)
escribió:

> Hi all,
>
> Proposal #302 was submitted to the committee and assigned to Cale. He has
> made a recommendation on the GitHub trail, but I don't believe the
> committee has discussed this among ourselves.
>
> PR: https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/pull/302
> Proposal:
> https://github.com/JakobBruenker/ghc-proposals/blob/patch-1/proposals/0000-lambda-layout.md
> Cale's recommendation:
> https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/pull/302#issuecomment-666075014
>
> The idea, in brief, is to introduce a new syntax (guarded behind
> -XMultiWayLambda) \of. Here is an example, which gives you the idea:
>
> mplus :: Maybe Int -> Maybe Int -> Maybe Int
> mplus = \of
>   Nothing _ -> Nothing
>   _ Nothing -> Nothing
>   (Just x) (Just y) -> Just (x + y)
>
> The new keyword allows us to use a syntax similar to function definitions,
> but without repeating the name of the function. It is also like \case, but
> it allows multiple arguments. Guards are allowed, as usual.
>
> I really like this new syntax -- mostly because I find it very strange
> that we have to repeat the function name on every line. And then change the
> spacing when we change the function name. And I like the mnemonic "lambda
> of". And it allows me to write a where clause that is accessible in
> multiple different patterns, or an indented where clause that is usable in
> just one. If it didn't confuse readers, I would use this syntax all the
> time.
>
> Even so, I agree with Cale's recommendation to reject. We just have too
> much syntax! If someone were to come along and draft a concrete proposal of
> how we could, for example, use this syntax to replace both \case and if|,
> with a migration strategy, etc., then I might be in favor. Until then, I
> think we've spent our budget for cute, obscure bits of syntax.
>
> Richard
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