[Haskell-cafe] Language complexity & beginners (Was: New type of ($) operator in GHC 8.0 is problematic)

[M Farkas-Dyck]

On 07/02/2016, wren romano <wren at community.haskell.org> wrote:
> Ultimately, ($) is just a name for what is otherwise unnameable: the
> whitespace which means application.

It is in fact otherwise called "id" ☺

> So my curiosity is this: why do
> we insist on considering ($) to be a function in the language rather
> than being syntax? We have overt syntax for other forms of whitespace,
> namely to deal with blocks and indentation, and we don't worry about
> what their types are, so why not treat ($) similarly?

These other symbols, the block delimiters, are not terms, and so have no types.