Type operators in GHC

[Joachim Breitner]

Hello,

while I agree that operators are usually more useful als type
constructors than as type variables, I’m wondering if it is future-proof
to completely get rid of a possibility for infix type variables. With
the type class system getting stronger and stronger, would this not mean
that there will be more and more use cases for infix type variables?
Maybe the change should at keep a (small) window open. Maybe, similar to
the current situation, a special character to indicate variables, not
constructors?

(I have no good idea, but here is at least one: A dot '.' as the first
character indicates a type variable; compared to a ':' this is a
non-capitalized character).


Also, is there maybe another way of distinguishing constructors and
variables, besides capitalization, that works equally well for operators
and non-operators? That could also help if a user would like to use
unicode characters in the name of a constructor that are letters but
don’t have a upper or titlecase variant. But then, this has probably
been given thought a long time ago, without a better solution than
capitalization resp. leading ':'.

Greetings,
Joachim

-- 
Joachim "nomeata" Breitner
  mail at joachim-breitner.de  |  nomeata at debian.org  |  GPG: 0x4743206C
  xmpp: nomeata at joachim-breitner.de | http://www.joachim-breitner.de/

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