[Haskell-cafe] accessible layout proposal?

[Jimmy Hartzell]

Daniel Fischer wrote:

> Or, what I do:
>
> concat
>     [ "("
>     , str
>     , ")"
>     ]

This is a lot better, true, but it still takes a lot of typing, and the
first element is now special-cased, preventing easy copy-and-paste
(although, admittedly, much less opportunity for mistake). On a more
philosophical level, the signals used by the humans still are different
from the signals used by the computer, which leads me to suspect such a
system could still cause confusion.

> And that is avoided, because a missing comma leaps to the eye.

True. Drawing this much attention to syntax, however, is part of why I
find it aesthetically displeasing.

> Which is a good thing in my eyes.

Well, yes, but it means that when you lay it out the way I was proposing,
you had two levels of indentation. With the way you're using, it's a lot
cleaner.

> I see your point but remain not liking the proposal.

Do you mean you see that there is a problem in the language that needs
fixing, but you just don't like this fix? Would you be open to a modified
version of the proposal? Is it an aesthetic objection, or more
philosophical?