[Haskell-cafe] history of tuples vs pairs

[Niels Aan de Brugh]

On Wed, 2008-06-25 at 16:50 +0200, Conal Elliott wrote:
> I have a foggy memory that early ML had only binary pairing, nesting
> for n-tuples.  Can anyone confirm this memory.  If so, does anyone
> remember the rationale for going to n-tuples?  Performance, perhaps?

What is the difference between a list build up of Cons and a "tuple"
made out of pairs? I think the latter wouldn't really add anything new.

A question of my own: is there much difference between e.g.
  data MyData = MyData Int Bool Char
and
  type MyData = (Int, Bool, Char)
other than the syntax of course?

Regards,
Niels