Proposal: Add singleton function to Data.List module

[Oliver Charles]

On Mon, Aug 12, 2019 at 6:03 PM Herbert Valerio Riedel
<hvriedel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > - `(:[])`: Subjectively ugly.
>
> I consider "subjectively ugly" to be a non-technical and thus really
> weak argument to dismiss the list-idiomatic ninja-robot-operator (:[])
> which also happens to be shorter than the proposed alias for it. I for
> one don't see a significant benefit for adding a redundant synonym to
> `Data.List` and are thus -1 on this.

You are of course entitled to see this as a weak argument, but those
of us who are writing Haskell for 8 hours a day do not make all of our
decisions based on purely "technical" arguments. How easy it is for
myself and colleagues to review code is significant.

On the other hand, "the existing alternative happens to be shorter"
*is* a weak argument to me. There is no tax on characters typed, and
IMO we should be evaluating this change on whether or not it
contributes to code clarity, rather than "is long to type". Unless you
consider "singleton" to be so long it further obscures code, but I
have a hard time buying that.

Ollie