After reading several recent papers I came to the understanding that there isn't consensus on the name of Applicative Functors. Several prefer to call them idioms: "'Idiom' was the name McBride originally chose, but he and Paterson now favour the less evocative term `applicative functor'. We have a slight preference for the former, not least because it lends itself nicely to adjectival uses, as in `idiomatic traversal'"[1] I also noticed use of the term Idiom in [2], [3], and [4]. I'm writing a set of classes that includes AF's and I'm trying to decide whether to call the class Idiom. Anyone have more information on this question? David [1] Gibbons, J. and Oliveira, B. c. 2009. The essence of the iterator pattern. J. Funct. Program. 19, 3-4 (Jul. 2009), 377-402. DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0956796809007291 [2] RALF HINZE (2009). The Bird Tree. Journal of Functional Programming, 19 , pp 491-508 doi:10.1017/S0956796809990116 [3] S. Lindley, P. Wadler, and J. Yallop. Idioms are oblivious, arrows are meticulous, monads are promiscuous. In Proc. of MSFP, 2008. [4] The Arrow Calculus, Sam Lindley, Philip Wadler, and Jeremy Yallop. Tech report, 2008. -- David Sankel Sankel Software www.sankelsoftware.com