2009/11/18 Twan van Laarhoven
The TDNR proposal really tries to do two separate things:
1. Record syntax for function application. The proposal is to tread "x.f" or a variation thereof the same as "(f x)"
2. Type directed name lookup. The proposal is to look up overloaded names based on the type of the first function argument.
Why can't these be considered separately? Is there a good reason for not using TDNR in normal function applications? The only argument I can think of (compared to the record syntax) is that it would be a bigger change.
Hi Twan Using the T combinator renamed to (#) for "x.f" was idiomatic Haskell a decade ago, vis: 'Client-side Web Scripting with HaskellScript" Erik Meijer, Daan Leijen and James Hook (PADL 1999) 'Modelling HTML in Haskell' Peter Thiemann (PADL 2000) Quoting Erik Meijer et al.: To reflect the influence of the OO style, we will use the postfix function application object # method = method object to mimic the object.method notation. For your first point, I'd vote for adding (#) to Data.Function... Best wishes Stephen