[Haskell-cafe] flip fix or let

[Matthew Brecknell]

Jules Bean:
> If you're merely talking about top-down or bottom-up then there is also 
> 'where' rather than 'let'.

Yes, I admit I tend to prefer "where" over "let", all else being equal.

But my main concern was embedding recursive functions in do-blocks,
particularly monadic loops that aren't amenable to the usual
combinators. Bindings made in a do block aren't visible in a "where"
clause, so pushing the definition to the where clause would typically
require additional arguments to be passed. I'd rather not do that, so
I'm left choosing between "let" and "fix".

> A lot of discussion about haskell code revolves around whether or not a 
> given construction is 'clear'; this has something to do with haskell's 
> almost unparallelled ability to abstract, I suppose. Ultimately, 
> something is clear once you are used to the abstraction, but obfuscated 
> if you're not, so it becomes rather subjective.

I'd agree with that, so perhaps I should have instead asked: Are there
other ways, besides "fix" and "let", to write monadic loops that won't
easily submit to forM and friends?

I already see one suggestion from Claus [1], who seems determined that
lazy I/O should have the last laugh :-), that is, extract the loop
structure to a new combinator, leaving the loop body inline.

[1]http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2007-March/023686.html