19 Nov
2005
19 Nov
'05
1:28 p.m.
Ketil Malde wrote: [about A.b and A . b potentially meaning different things:]
Syntax that changes depending on spacing is my number one gripe with the Haskell syntax
I've generally considered that one of the good ideas in most current languages (it's not specific to Haskell). ISTR there was a Basic dialect where IFX=0THENX=X+1 and IF X = 0 THEN X = X + 1 meant the same thing. If that dialect had allowed multi-character variable names (which I think it didn't), ANDY would have been parsed as AND Y instead of the simple variable ANDY. Hence, spacing being significant is not Haskell-specific and is generally a good thing. -- Antti-Juhani