Bang patterns

[Simon Peyton-Jones]

Earlier on the Haskell' list, I proposed bang patterns as a way to make
it more convenient for Haskell programmers to make their programs
stricter.  E.g.
	f (!x, y) = ....

I've documented the proposal here
	
http://haskell.galois.com/cgi-bin/haskell-prime/trac.cgi/wiki/BangPatter
ns

I've implemented it in GHC, so you can try it out.  Use
	-fbang-patterns
to enable bang patterns.   If you use -fglasgow-exts you get
-fbang-patterns as well.  If you don't want that, use -fglasgow-exts
-fno-bang-patterns.

I'd be interested to hear your experiences.  (Committee members: do add
notes to the Wiki page giving pros and cons.)

Simon