On Wed, 7 Feb 2007, Benjamin Franksen wrote:
Udo Stenzel wrote:
Benjamin Franksen wrote:
Udo Stenzel wrote:
Sure, you're right, everything flowing in the same direction is usually nicer, and in central Europe, that order is from the left to the right. What a shame that the Haskell gods chose to give the arguments to (.) and ($) the wrong order!
But then application is in the wrong order, too. Do you really want to write (x f) for f applied to x?
No, doesn't follow.
No? Your words: "everything flowing in the same direction".
Of the two definitions
(f . g) x = g (f x)
vs.
(f . g) x = f (g x)
the first one (your prefered one) turns the natural applicative order around, while the second one preserves it. Note this is an objective argument and has nothing to do with how I feel about it.
I would guess that one thing lying at the bottom of this particular disagreement is whether everything is a function, or whether objects are some qualified class of their own. A way to categorify elements of objects in a cartesian closed category (such as that that sufficiently restricted Haskell takes place in) are to view entities of type A as maps () -> A. If this is the case, then with g::A -> B and f:: B -> C, we would want our composition to work the same way regardless of what we feed into it, and so we have two choices of notation: either x . g . f or f . g . x (where I'm using the fact that composition in a category is associative, as to not write the brackets everywhere) Now, here it is perfectly obvious why Udo's argument applies, and that inverting (.) and ($) would lead to (x f) meaning f applied to x. In a way, this is more in agreement with the actual maps we view, since x . g . f corresponds to a composition () -> A -> B -> C ==> () -> C However, if elements are to be viewed as something different entirely, not in any way acquainted with functions, then one could state that function composition should be by right action, and element application by left action, so as to mimic the unix shell situation. It seems a bit unnatural in purely functional languages though, and I believe that one'd lose important intuition that way around. -- Mikael Johansson | To see the world in a grain of sand mikael@johanssons.org | And heaven in a wild flower http://www.mikael.johanssons.org | To hold infinity in the palm of your hand | And eternity for an hour