Tillmann Rendel
Of course, this would need some type hackery à la PrintF to make set accept multiple arguments, and the proliferation of such type hackery may seem unfortunate. On the other hand, the hackery could possibly be encapsulated in a combinator like
polyvariadic :: Poly a b c => ([a] -> b) -> c
so that layoutSet can be implemented as
layoutSet widget = polyvariadic (set widget).
I could think of a layout-based keyword to construct Alternative values, which wouldn't require type hackery. Something like this: acat a b c which would be equivalent to a <|> b <|> c Then you could write: layoutSet myButton $ acat [text := "Ok"] [on action := doSomething] Occasionally this would be very useful for parsers: numericWord = acat try $ 1 <$ string "one" try $ 2 <$ string "two" try $ 3 <$ string "three" This together with layout-based function application could be great syntactical features. Firstly it would be strictly optional, so you could still program without or with less layout, if you prefer. Secondly you could get rid of a number of other keywords this way, most notably the 'if', 'then' and 'else' keywords. Some people like 'then' and 'else'. So instead of completely removing them, you can turn them into functions instead: newtype Then a = Then a newtype Else a = Else a if :: Bool -> Then a -> Else a -> a then :: a -> Then a else :: a -> Else a if condition $$ then thisIfTrue else thisIfFalse The benefit is that 'if', 'then' and 'else' aren't keywords anymore and can be used for other purposes in narrow scopes. Sometimes this would be useful. Greets Ertugrul -- nightmare = unsafePerformIO (getWrongWife >>= sex) http://blog.ertes.de/