On 16 Nov 2004, Peter Simons wrote:
Henning Thielemann writes:
Variable length argument lists are really a mess. Why are people so keen on them?
One advantage is that you need to type fewer characters.
I know memory is expensive, that's why only the last two digits of year numbers are stored. :-]
It's, well, not _that_ important, I'll readily admit. :-)
I'm afraid, that's the only reason. :-(
Personally, I have found ShowS style text-formatting to be my favorite. The code
verb = showString msg = (verb "i = ") . (12 `shows`) . (verb "\tj = ") $ "test"
isn't mind-blowingly compact either, but I always feel an odd satisfaction when writing this, because it's supposedly very efficient -- which justifies the extra characters,
You can save even more characters: msg = verb "i = " . shows 12 . verb "\tj = " $ "test"