[Haskell-cafe] GHC Extension Proposal: ArgumentBlock

[Bardur Arantsson]

On 09/08/2015 06:57 AM, Manuel Gómez wrote:
> On 09/08/2015 03:08 AM, Dan Burton wrote:
>> You can even write in the old style if you have the extension turned on. It
>> doesn't disable the old way of doing things. It just allows a new way. It's
>> entirely backwards compatible with working code when turned on, is it not?
> 
> On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 11:32 PM, Bardur Arantsson <spam at scientician.net> wrote:
>> Except now there are two "dialects" everybody has to read/understand.
>> That's not progress IMO. (Considering that it's so little gain. I really
>> don't understand the hatred of $ that some people seem to have.)
> 
> Every library published on Hackage could be said to create a new
> dialect of Haskell for some specific purpose.  Operator-heavy,
> multipurpose libraries such as lens could also be said to introduce
> new dialects.  Yes, they all parse under the same grammar, but if you
> don’t know the fixity of some operator, it might as well be some
> strange unknown syntax — let alone not knowing what it actually does.
> 
> We’re so used to understanding complex semantics and diverse,
> sometimes even obtuse styles of expression (pointfree, anyone?).
> Surely the mental effort of parsing a lambda or a do-block in a new,
> previously invalid syntax is a trivial matter for programmers
> accustomed to running type checking algorithms in our heads.

If this were LISP or Scheme (i.e. macros), I'd agree with you :).
Needless to say, I don't when it comes to Haskell.

(Again because this adds *so* little convenience.)

Regards,