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

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

On 8/02/16 1:42 pm, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> I like the new type signature. It indicates that you're about to invoke
> dark magic line noise to avoid something simple and well-understood and
> in use since the beginning of time (parentheses).
So time began in the 15th century?
No, wait, that's text.  For mathematics,
time must have begun in the 16th century.
http://jeff560.tripod.com/grouping.html

Wait, those were grouping parentheses, not application ones.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_function_concept
something explicit resembling modern ideas of a "function" appeared
in the 17th century, so THAT's when time began.

I always wondered.