> >But I think we can have the cake and eat it too, if we get rid of the
> >restriction (which I never liked) that operators beginning with : must be a
> >constructor: just define
> >a := b = (a,b)
>
> Unfortunately that won't work if := had been used in patterns. I think
> backward compatibility is an issue. The standard technique of supporting
> Assoc but with compiler warnings will probably have to be used.
Excuse my previous message. I misunderstood John's comment.
Yes, := in patterns would be problematic. Something like
import Prelude renaming ((,) to (:=))
could have helped, if it wasn't that is was forbidden in several ways.
(First (,) is not allowed (I think it should!!!), second you'd
want both (,) and (:=) visible.)
-- Lennart
