I would like to propose the addition of two new combinators to Control.Monad: ifM :: (Monad m) => m Bool -> m a -> m a -> m a whenM :: (Monad m) => m Bool -> m () -> m () The reason is that when you work in a `Monad m` the first argument of `if` and `when` is often a `m Bool` and not a `Bool`. In those cases, you have to write: monadicOperationReturningBool >>= \b -> when b doAnotherMonadicOperation or monadicOperationReturningBool >>= flip when doAnotherMonadicOperation to accomplish what you want to do. If you use the do-notation this is less terrible but you still need to assign a name to the boolean value. Take for example: f = do dirDoesntExist <- not <$> doesDirectoryExist path when dirDoesntExist $ do putStrLn $ "Creating directory " ++ path createDirectory path in this snippet, dirDoesntExist is completely useless and its only purpose it to be used in the next expression. With the new combinators you could write: f = whenM (not <$> doesDirectoryExists path) $ do putStrLn $ "Creating directory " ++ path createDirectory path Many libraries on hackage already include these functions (I often use Control.Conditional). For a list see http://holumbus.fh-wedel.de/hayoo/hayoo.html?query=whenM&start=0.