On Thu, Jul 26, 2007 at 08:17:06PM -0400, anon wrote: > 2007/7/26, Stefan O'Rear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: >> Out of curiousity, what do you find objectionable about (legal): >> >> function argument argument2 >> | guard = body >> | guard = body >> >> as compared to (currently illegal): >> >> function argument argument2 >> | guard = body >> | guard = body > > The extra space, obviously :-) > I'm well aware that this is an issue of vanishingly small consequence, > but one could likewise dismiss the entire layout business as a > needlessly complicated way to save a few keystrokes if one were so > inclined. If language complexity is the chief concern, why not > dispense with layout altogether (and a few more things beside)? > Perhaps fuzzy notions of aesthetics and intuitiveness should weigh > into the equation as well unless you don't mind programming in the > unadorned lambda calculus.
Definitely, and Haskell *was* designed to be aesthetic. I suppose what I'm really trying to ask is *why* you think the second should be legal. To me it just seems like an ugly ad-hoc generalization, and ad-hoc generalizations are something Haskell tries to avoid. (There's a bit of background on the syntax design process in SPJ's History of Haskell paper, page 10 of http://research.microsoft.com/~simonpj/papers/history-of-haskell/history.pdf). Stefan
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