Joost Behrends wrote:
We read
data Pair a b = Pair a b
in YetAnotherHaskellTutorial. And that is all ! If we omit "data" here, this would be a silly pleonasm. And no single word about this strange behavior of "data" in every tutorial i read.
When learning a language, I find it useful to consult grammar to find out the relevant part of the syntax; then I can check the Haskell online report for explanations. For example you presented: ... searching for data in http://www.hck.sk/users/peter/HaskellEx.htm ... gives you http://www.hck.sk/users/peter/HaskellEx.htm#topdecl ... and from there you can quickly find relevant part of Haskel report: http://www.haskell.org/onlinereport/decls.html#sect4.2.1 Haskell has a nice html specification online (thanks for it!). Peter.