Re: [Haskell-beginners] general observation about programming

It is, I agree, not appropriate everywhere, but point-free code can in the right place be much more readable. Maps are a good example. Compare: map (f . g . h) xs to map (\x -> f $ g $ h x) xs On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 10:17 PM, Rustom Mody wrote:

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 11:11 PM, Rein Henrichs wrote:

...

Pointfree is good for reasoning about *composition*. It can often be more readable than pointful code when the focus of the function is on composition of other functions. For example, take this function from Bird's *Pearls of Functional Algorithm Design*:

boxes = map ungroup . ungroup . map cols . group . map group

And better if you read it in the right (ie left to right order)

boxes = map group >>> group >>> map cols >> ungroup >>> map ungroup (From Control.Arrow)

Even better if the 3-char clunky >>> is reduced to the 1-char ⋙ map group ⋙ group ⋙ map cols ⋙ ungroup ⋙ map ungroup (From Control.Arrow.Unicode) [Those who find this unnatural/difficult/arcane/etc may like to check out Unix-pipes (or English :-) ]

Some wishful thinking in the same direction (uses python but python is not really relevant) : http://blog.languager.org/2014/04/unicoded-python.html Which to some extent I found works in Haskell : http://blog.languager.org/2014/05/unicode-in-haskell-source.html If only Haskell would go further!!

_______________________________________________ Beginners mailing list Beginners@haskell.org http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/beginners

-- Jeffrey Benjamin Brown