brk@jenkon.com wrote:
There's another piece to this question that we're overlooking, I think. It's not just a difference (or lack thereof) in precedence, it's the fact that parentheses indicate application in Python and many other languages, and a function name without parentheses after it is a reference to the function, not an application of it. This has nothing to do with currying that I can see - you can have curried functions in Python, and they still look the same. The main advantage I see for the Haskell style is (sometimes) fewer keypresses for parentheses, but I still find it surprising at times. Unfortunately in many cases you need to apply nearly as many parens for a Haskell expression as you would for a Python one, but they're in different places. It's not:
foo( bar( baz( x ) ) ) it's: (foo ( bar (baz x) ) )
I'm not sure why folks thought this was an improvement. I suppose it bears more resemblance to lambda calculus?
In Haskell, one doesn't need to distinguish "a reference to the function" from "an application of it". As a result, parentheses need to serve only a single function, that of grouping. Parentheses surround an entire function application, just as they surround an entire operation application: foo (fum 1 2) (3 + 4) I find this very consistent, simple, and elegant. Dean