| First, I'm not clear what Simon meant by "first class abstractions"
| in this comment
|
| > Several proposals suggest first class abstractions rather that
| > first-class patterns. Here are the ones I know of ...
Sorry to have been un-clear. By a "first class abstraction" I mean a value of
type
something -> something
with a syntax something like
\ pattern -> body
The abstraction includes both the pattern and the result. In contrast, view
patterns tackle only the syntax of patterns; the pattern of a first-class
abstraction. I'll update the wiki
A first-class *pattern*, on the other hand, really ought to be something like
(a,b), where a and b are *binders*. This is what Barry Jay means by a
first-class pattern in his very interesting work (which I should reference from
the wiki). See "The Patten Calculus"
http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~cbj/Publications/chronological.html
Still, I think it's likely that I'm exaggerating, and that view patterns and
first-class abstractions are tied up together somehow. But I don't grok
exactly how.
Simon
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