[web-devel] Hamlet variable interpolation syntax [previously: A few questions about Yesod]

[Alexander Dunlap]

2010/12/30 Michael Snoyman <michael at snoyman.com>:
> On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Iustin Pop <iustin at google.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 03:09:16PM +0200, Michael Snoyman wrote:
>>> Very good questions, answers below.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 1:01 PM, Iustin Pop <iustin at google.com> wrote:
>>> > Hi all,
>>> >
>>> > I just started looking at Yesod and its associated libs (hamlet, etc.)
>>> > and it is very interesting, thanks.
>>> >
>>> > However, I'm confused by a few things and the docs are not helping, so
>>> > please bear my beginner questions.
>>> >
>>> > First: hamlet uses '.' as function application, instead of the usual
>>> > space. How can I then use a qualified name (e.g. Data.List.nub)? If I
>>> > use it normally, it errors out on me. Must be something very trivial but
>>> > I cannot find a way.
>>>
>>> Hamlet uses both '.' and space as function application, and therefore
>>> qualified names are not supported. I work around this usually by
>>> creating an alias for the function I want locally. I know this can be
>>> inelegant; if you have any ideas, I'm all ears.
>>
>> Yep, that's what I'm using too now, but it becomes cumbersome quickly,
>> especially when using records…
>>
>> I'm not sure what was the original impetus to use . (too) as function
>> application if space is accepted too. I'm thinking reverting that
>> decision would make the code look more like regular Haskell.
>>
>> A simpler alternative (not sure if easily doable) would be to allow
>> escaping of the dot, e.g. $Data\.List\.nub.mylist$; it's ugly, but…
>
> It actually went the other way: period first, and space added by
> request. Originally, Hamlet variables were not directly mapped to
> Haskell function calls. Instead, it was meant to parallel variable
> lookup in common template languages from the object-oriented world.
> Another impetus is because of statements like forall and maybe:
>
> $forall allPeople.myFamily person
>    %li $person name$
>
> This can also be written as
>
> $forall (allPeople myFamily) person
>
> You could argue that the latter is more legible; my problem with the
> space is for cases with more than two functions in the chain. $foo bar
> baz$ gets converted to the Haskell code "foo (bar baz)".
>
> I'll admit that this whole situation bothers me as well. Hamlet 0.7 is
> currently in the works, and I don't mind introducing some major
> changes. I think this issue deserves some attention: what does
> everyone else think? Maybe we should start a separate thread to
> discuss this issue in particular.
>

Would there be a problem with removing the dot syntax entirely and
just having regular Haskell syntax for variable interpretation? That
might be more flexible and easier to learn.

Alexander