On Sat, 09 May 2009 14:57:24 -0300, namekuseijin wrote: > I'm saying syntax is nothing special. They are user-defined, as > functions. And it all gets converted into functions. Functions matter, > syntax is irrelevant because you can do away with it.
How do you call functions without syntax? By mental telepathy? By direct manipulation of the electromagnetic fields inside the CPU? > In Haskell, point free style of programming shows almost no signs of > predefined syntax at all. It's all function composition. But it takes syntax in order to write function composition. There's at least six ways of doing function composition: f(g(x)) # used in many programming languages and mathematics f . g (x) # Haskell f o g (x) # mathematics g f # stack-based languages like Forth g x | f # Unix-like shells compose(f, g)(x) # possible in many languages. > In functional programming languages, predefined syntax is mostly > irrelevant. In Python and other imperative languages, it's absolutely > necessary. That's my point. I think your point is wrong. Without syntax, there can be no written communication. In Haskell, f.g is not the same as f+g -- the difference is one of syntax. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
