| Why not just let | | if x then y else z | | be syntactic sugar for | | Prelude.ifThenElse x y z The burden of my original message was that a) this is reasonable, but b) it would have to become the *defined behaviour* As you say, the "defined behaviour" would have to cover guards as well, and I'm not absolutely certain what else. The way GHC is set up now, it's relatively easy to make such changes (this wasn't true before). But it takes some design work. If someone cares enough to do the design work, and actively wants the result, I'll see how hard it is to implement. Simon