1 Apr
2008
1 Apr
'08
10:08 a.m.
On 1 Apr 2008, at 12:40, PR Stanley wrote:
Why can't we have function application implemented outwardly (inside-out). So f g x would be applied with gx first followed by its return value passed to f instead of putting g x in brackets.
It seems me it may come from an alteration of math conventions: Normally (x) = x, and function application is written as f(x), except for a few traditional names, like for example sin x. So if one reasons that f(x) can be simplified to f x, then f g x becomes short for f(g)(x) = (f(g))(x). It is just a convention. In math, particularly in algebra, one sometimes writes "f of x" as x f or (x)f, so that one does not have to reverse the order for example in diagrams. Hans Aberg