[Haskell-cafe] Language complexity & beginners

[Joachim Durchholz]

Am 09.02.2016 um 12:27 schrieb Kosyrev Serge:
> Case in point (only slightly contrived) -- which one is easier to
> visually parse to you:
>
>    foo (thInt $ fromIntegral $ c2hsValueInt cexp) (thInt $ fromIntegral $ c2hsValueInt cexp)
>
>    foo (thInt (fromIntegral (c2hsValueInt cexp))) (thInt (fromIntegral (c2hsValueInt cexp)))

You can always denest by naming subexpressions.
e.g.

   let subexpr = thInt (fromIntegral (c2hsValueInt cexp)))
   in foo subexpr subexpr

or

   let subexpr = (thInt . fromIntegral . c2hsValueInt) cexp
   in foo subexpr subexpr

or

   let fn = thInt . fromIntegral . c2hsValueInt
   in foo (fn cexp) (fn cexp)

I routinely do that kind of denesting as soon as a line goes beyond 72 
characters. I have found that such code is usually far easier to read 
regardless of what I'm doing in the line.

I think the problem is not that you cannot write readable code, it is 
that people do not use existing facilities for that.
If that's correct, then adding another facility for the same purpose is 
unlikely to help.