On Mon, Dec 13, 2004 at 07:49:00PM -0800, oleg@pobox.com wrote:
The operator ($) is often considered an application operator of a lower precedence. Modulo precedence, there seem to be no difference between ($) and `the white space', and so one can quickly get used to treat these operators as being semantically the same. However, they are not the same in all circumstances. I'd like to observe an important case where replacing the application with ($) in a fully-parenthesized expression can lead to a type error.
I think this post should go under the heading "($) considered harmful". I've been bitten by this, and I never use ($) anymore in place of parentheses because it's too tempting to think of it as syntax. (Of course, it's still useful, by itself or in a slice, as a higher-order operator.) Andrew