[Haskell-cafe] Records

Ketil Malde ketil.malde at bccs.uib.no
Mon Nov 21 03:32:47 EST 2005


"Simon Marlow" <simonmar at microsoft.com> writes:

> I'm assuming you don't consider the distinction between '::' and ': :'
> to be a problem - the justification for this is simple and logical: a
> double colon '::' is a reserved symbol, in the same way that 'then' is a
> reserved identifier.

Intuitively a contigous string of symbols should form one identifier,
just like a string of letters does.  So '>>=' is different from '>> ='
or '> >=' etc.  I suspect I have to make some kind of exception for
nesting/grouping symbols - parentheses and quotes etc.

>   - single-line comments  (--??? is not a comment, but -- ??? is)

...so this doesn't bother me so much.

Perhaps we need to either start adopting symbols outside of 7-bit
ASCII?  The other solution is to learn to use actual *names* instead
of inventing ad-hoc strings of symbols.  Haskell code tends to go
overboard with symbolic operators, but in general, it detracts from
the readability and adds to the learning curve.  We don't have to just
because we can. :-)

-k
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants



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