[Haskell-cafe] Status of TypeDirectedNameResolution proposal?

Richard O'Keefe ok at cs.otago.ac.nz
Tue Nov 24 16:11:30 EST 2009


>
>> * For record selectors, currently written (x r), writing r.x is
>> exactly right

Algol 68 used 'x of r', which I always found rather readable.
COBOL has always used 'x of r' and 'x in r' with the same meaning.
BCPL uses 'f O§F r' which may I believe also be written 'f::r'.
Fortran uses 'r%x'.
Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming" uses X(R).
Erlang uses 'x#type.r'.

r.x is no more "exactly right" than "x r" or "x OF r" or
anything else one might come up with.

Is there any need to still limit ourselves to ASCII?
Might we dare at long last to use the section sign §
and write r§x?  If any symbol is appropriate for getting
part of something, surely section is!  (If you want to
call it "Select", why, § is a modified capital S.)
Best of all, § has no other uses in Haskell.  (It isn't
_quite_ as easy to type as dots are, but option 6 isn't
_that_ hard to type.)  Oh, and if you think dots are
great, why, § has a fat dot right in the middle of it.




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