On 25 July 2011 08:22, Paul R wrote:

Hi Café,

Thomas> I think (<>) is fairly uncontroversial because: Thomas> (...) Thomas> 2. It's abstract. i.e., no intended pronunciation

How can that be an advantage ? A text flow with unnamed (or unpronounceable) symbols makes reading, understanding and remembering harder, don't you think ? I really think any operator or symbol should be intended (and even designed !) for pronunciation.

Some references state that the monoid binary operation is often named "dot" or "times" in english. That does not mean the operator must be `dot`, `times`, (<.>) or (<x>) but at least the doc should provide a single, consistent and pronounceable name for it, whatever its spelling.

Well, in this case I think it can be beneficial because the pronunciation depends on the underlying monoid. E.g., sometimes it would be "append" or "plus", other times "dot" or "times". It can, of course, be useful to also have a good name for the generic operator. In this case I'd call it "diamond". -- Push the envelope. Watch it bend.

2011/7/25 Paul R

Some references state that the monoid binary operation is often named "dot" or "times" in english. That does not mean the operator must be `dot`, `times`, (<.>) or (<x>) but at least the doc should provide a single, consistent and pronounceable name for it, whatever its spelling.

That is the problem when changing a function into an operator: the pronunciation. There should be a page somewhere that sums up how to pronounce the most common operators.

...

= is "bind", ok, but how do you pronounce >> or <*>, for instance?

I like to take a leaf out of Prince's book and refer to it as "the function formerly known as mappend" August Sodora augsod@gmail.com (201) 280-8138 On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 3:22 AM, Paul R wrote:

Hi Café,

Thomas> I think (<>) is fairly uncontroversial because: Thomas> (...) Thomas> 2. It's abstract. i.e., no intended pronunciation

How can that be an advantage ? A text flow with unnamed (or unpronounceable) symbols makes reading, understanding and remembering harder, don't you think ? I really think any operator or symbol should be intended (and even designed !) for pronunciation.

Some references state that the monoid binary operation is often named "dot" or "times" in english. That does not mean the operator must be `dot`, `times`, (<.>) or (<x>) but at least the doc should provide a single, consistent and pronounceable name for it, whatever its spelling.

Thomas> For this reason, I think a larger change would have to come with Thomas> a larger library re-organization. Johan Tibell suggested Thomas> something like that a while ago: instead of lots of little cuts Thomas> (backwards incompatible changes), a working group of activists Thomas> should redesign a whole new (incompatible) alternative set of Thomas> core libraries.

This would be a great initiative, really !

--  Paul

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