On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:04:26 -0800 (PST), oleg@pobox.com
Jan-Willem Maessen wrote: ] Is it really clear or obvious what ] ] > map . (+) ] ] means?
Perhaps the following two examples might be more convincing:
u=uncurry e=((partition $ u(==)).) . zip f x=(x\\).(x\\)
It is obviously clear what 'e' and 'f x' do.
I would have to disagree there... Show that to someone who's just taken an intro course in Haskell and ask them what they mean and you'll see what I mean. Even if they know how the . operator works it would still take several minutes of reasoning to figure out what it means. Only if you've taken considerable time to get a solid intuition for points-free style by using it extensively would the last two of those example ever be "obvious". I am, like some others, of the opinion that using points-free style almost always makes the code less clear for basically everyone else. Trivial examples such as:
double = 2* can be tolerated, but in general you only stand to gain clarity from exlicitly writing out the parameters to the function.
Points free style is cool in a geeky sort of way, but not really all that useful when you're trying to write clear code that people can actually understand. /S -- Sebastian Sylvan +46(0)736-818655 UIN: 44640862