I think I was a bit inflamatory in my previous post because I was fuming about something else in my life; I stand by the factual content of what I said but wish I'd phrased it much less confrontationally. On Mon, 9 Dec 2002, matt hellige wrote: [snip]
You seem to be saying that layout should be banished because there's a set of people (of undetermined size) who would like Haskell were they to encounter it, except for that darned optional layout rule interefering with the ability to choose a personal interpretation for what the ASCII tab character should mean.
please do not discount this argument. the group of people who are, for one reason or another, not members of the haskell community is not a vocal group, nor are they well represented. however, they are the majority. if there is interest in promoting haskell among those who currently don't use it, which there seems to be, some time needs to be spent either soliciting opinions from people outside the haskell community, or guessing what those opinions would be.
The point I was trying to make was that I'm not sure how big the block of poeple for whom the big problem is layout. I've supervised lots of undergraduate labs and found many people who absolutely don't like Haskell for many reasons, but I can't say I've encountered anyone for whom the layout rule was part of the reason for dislike; the biggest one was always that they never seemed to develop a mental model of programming functionally rather than in the procedural, variable based way they were used to. (Almost everyone had a steep learning curve deciphering how error messages involving missing semi-colons map to bad layout, but after a while it wasn't the layout that they gravitate to as the thing they have issues with.) I'd just about be able to accept elimination of the layout rule syntax for Haskell if there was evidence that it's a significant problem that stops Haskell being adopted. But given that I feel layout is a _really_ good thing this has to be _established in a meaningful way_, not just plucked out of the air on the basis of a a couple of opinions.
clearly, it's a tough thing to do well. many of the opinions of people who aren't using haskell now may not be particularly relevant to the future direction of the language. however, it they're completely ignored, the language may never be accepted. this is the dilemma of all software designers, and only those who have no need for actual users can afford to ignore it.
Certainly (with the slight proviso that I'd specify `informed, considered opinions'). ___cheers,_dave_________________________________________________________ www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~tweed/ | `It's no good going home to practise email:tweed@cs.bris.ac.uk | a Special Outdoor Song which Has To Be work tel:(0117) 954-5250 | Sung In The Snow' -- Winnie the Pooh