Re: more flexible partial application

On 1/23/06, Sebastian Sylvan wrote:

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Are there any subtle reasons for why something like the following couldn't be allowed?

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foo x y z w = ... bar x w = foo x _ _ w

I.e. a more flexible version of partial application. This would be translated too

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bar x w = \y z -> foo x y z w

I.e a function which takes the "_" parameters in the same order they were encountered in the function application.

I'd be against this--its semantics isn't clear enough to me. For example, I usually assume id e = e, for any e, but

id (f _ x) y = id (\y->f y x) y = f y x /= f _ x y = \z -> f z x y Or would (f _ x) y and f _ x y maybe be different? That would fix the problem above, while introducing another. Please, no! John