Re: [Haskell-cafe] Indentation woes

On Thursday 26 July 2007, anon wrote:

2007/7/26, Stefan O'Rear :

...

Out of curiousity, what do you find objectionable about (legal):

function argument argument2

| guard = body | guard = body

as compared to (currently illegal):

function argument argument2

| guard = body | guard = body

The extra space, obviously :-) I'm well aware that this is an issue of vanishingly small consequence, but one could likewise dismiss the entire layout business as a needlessly complicated way to save a few keystrokes

On the contrary. Layout, by itself, strictly reduces the number of ways to write any given program. It makes things more consistent across coding styles. That's not an inconsequential benefit.

if one were so inclined. If language complexity is the chief concern, why not dispense with layout altogether (and a few more things beside)? Perhaps fuzzy notions of aesthetics and intuitiveness should weigh into the equation as well unless you don't mind programming in the unadorned lambda calculus.

Jonathan Cast http://sourceforge.net/projects/fid-core http://sourceforge.net/projects/fid-emacs