On Thu, 9 Dec 2004, Robert Dockins wrote:
And I thought that most programmers used "zipWith", which has to be prefix.
Is this true? Can you not use backticks on a partially applied function? If so, it seems like such a thing would be pretty useful (although I've never actually had occasion to need it, so....) I'll dig out the report and check sometime, but does anyone know for sure that the following wouldn't work?
[1..5] `zipWith (+)` [7..]
Infix operators are syntactic sugar, they are neither necessary nor essential. They can be used to simulate mathematical notation, if one considers that to be more readable, not only because it is more common. I don't think that it is a good idea to extend the infix notation to any functional expression. I also think that one should use backquotes rarely and especially one should not define library functions with their parameters in the "wrong" order just because one expects that the user of the library will stick to the infix notation and slicing (such as (`zip` x)). I hope that it is not true, that most programmers write `zip`. If it is true, I doubt, that this is good style. :-]