[Haskell-cafe] Use of abbreviations in Haskell

[Miguel Mitrofanov]

module Element where
import QName
import ...
data Element = Element {name :: QName, attribs :: [Attr], content ::  
[Content], line :: Maybe Line}

module Attr where
import QName
import ...
data Attr = Attr {key :: QName, val :: String}

module QName where
import ...
data QName = QName {name :: String, uri :: Maybe String, prefix ::  
Maybe String}

module Main where
import qualified QName as Q
import qualified Element as E
... Q.name ... E.name ...

On 2 Jan 2009, at 17:20, Felix Martini wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> There is currently a discussion on reddit/programming about Haskell.
> One complaint is that Haskell functions often use abbreviated names. I
> tend to agree with that. In my personal experience it generally takes
> more time to learn a third party Haskell library than libraries
> written in other languages. I am not sure why but it could be because
> of function names. It seems to me that Haskell's current record syntax
> enhances this. Take for example the new xml library,
>
> data Element = Element {
>  elName :: QName
>  elAttribs :: [Attr]
>  elContent :: [Content]
>  elLine :: Maybe Line
> }
>
> data Attr = Attr {
>  attrKey :: QName
>  attrVal :: String
> }
>
> data QName = QName {
>  qName :: String
>  qURI :: Maybe String
>  qPrefix :: Maybe String
> }
>
> Personally i would prefer it to be something like
>
> data Element = Element {
>  name :: QualifiedName
>  attributes :: [Attribute]
>  content :: [Content]
>  line :: Maybe Line
> }
>
> data Attribute = Attribute {
>  key :: QualifiedName
>  value :: String
> }
>
> data QualifiedName = QualifiedName {
>  name :: String
>  uri :: Maybe String
>  prefix :: Maybe String
> }
>
> but the global scope of the record field names doesn't allow that and
> therefore all kinds of abbreviations are inserted in front of the
> record field names which are hard to remember. So a better record
> syntax would be welcome. Perhaps the constructor could be used to
> limit the scope of the record field name e.g. QualifiedName.prefix?
>
>
> Regards,
> Felix
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