[Haskell-cafe] Syntax for lambda case proposal could be "\of"

[Stefan O'Rear]

On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 06:23:24PM +0100, Brian Hulley wrote:
> Hi,
> On http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/haskell-prime/wiki/LambdaCase the 
> proposed syntax for lambda case is:
>
>    case of
>        alts
>
> but this has a really bad downside for interactive editors: it doesn't 
> allow one to distinguish between an incomplete construct and a completed 
> construct thus removing one opportunity for an editor to alert the user (eg 
> by highlighting) that there is something missing in the program text.

It's not like the current language has that property; consider (map
myFunction) - is that an error or a partial application?

I don't hold out much hope for context-free smart editors.  You'll need
a typechecker to do much of use, and that can easily distinguish lambda
cases from regular cases...


OTOH, your proposal provides (IMO) much more natural syntax for
multi-pattern anonymous functions, especially if we stipulate that
unlike a case (but like a lambda) you can have multiple arguments; then
you could write stuff like:

sumTo0 = foldr (\of 0 k -> 0
                    n k -> n + k) 0

Anyone else like this?

Stefan
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