Twan van Laarhoven wrote:
The bang pattern proposal [1] still allows (!) to be used as an operator. I think there should be no difference in this regard between ! and ~, since they are used in exactly the same location.
In my opinion the best thing would be to allow (~) and (@) as operators. With the same restriction on definition as (!), i.e. they must be defined in function style, not as an operator.
The change to the syntax would be to remove @ and ~ from the reserved operators list [2], reservedop -> .. | : | :: | = | \ | | | <- | -> | @ | ~ | => making it reservedop -> .. | : | :: | = | \ | | | <- | -> | =>
I agree - it confused me in the past that I couldn't define (@) or (~) operators. Bang-pattern syntax being active will still change the meaning of x ! y = z of course.
Oh, and while we are at it, I think (:) should also be removed as a reservedop, there is no reason for it to be on that list.
Backwards compatibility requires that it be implicitly imported from Prelude even in a module that does "import Prelude ( )" (although Hugs is already broken in this regard). And that makes it fairly useless as a non-reserved symbol. If not for that issue, I agree. Isaac