micro-rant

Memovich, Gary GARY.MEMOVICH@kla-tencor.com
Tue, 7 Aug 2001 20:20:49 -0700


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Hello people,
I've been studying the Haskell 98 report as part of my study of the Haskell
language and need to rant just a little bit.
 
<micro-rant>
As long as were trying to clean up a final version of the Haskell 98 report,
lets simplify it a little by getting rid of unary minus.
It's the only prefix operator in the whole language.
It requires messing up the otherwise clean expression syntax.
It has a meaning that the user can't change, very rare in Haskell.
It even has a fixed precedence level.
It leads to excessive confusion when dealing with sections involving '-'
(the binary operator).
Uses can be replaced by either negate x or 0-x.
</micro-rant>
 
I know we can't actually remove unary minus at this point, I just had to get
this off my chest.
-- Gary
 

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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=968301003-08082001>Hello 
people,</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=968301003-08082001>I've been studying 
the Haskell 98 report as part of my study of the Haskell language and need to 
rant just a little bit.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN 
class=968301003-08082001></SPAN></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN 
class=968301003-08082001>&lt;micro-rant&gt;</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=968301003-08082001>As long as were 
trying to clean up a final version of the Haskell 98 report, lets simplify it a 
little by getting rid of unary minus.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=968301003-08082001>It's the only prefix 
operator in the whole language.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=968301003-08082001>It requires messing 
up the otherwise clean expression syntax.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=968301003-08082001>It has a meaning 
that the user can't change, very rare in Haskell.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=968301003-08082001>It even has a fixed 
precedence level.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=968301003-08082001>It leads to 
excessive confusion when dealing with sections involving '-' (the binary 
operator).</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=968301003-08082001>Uses can be replaced 
by either negate x or 0-x.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN 
class=968301003-08082001>&lt;/micro-rant&gt;</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN 
class=968301003-08082001></SPAN></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=968301003-08082001>I know we can't 
actually remove unary minus at this point, I just had to get this off my 
chest.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=968301003-08082001>-- 
Gary</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN 
class=968301003-08082001></SPAN></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV></BODY></HTML>

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