[Haskell-cafe] if-then-else as rebindable syntax (was Re: Why does Haskell have the if-then-else syntax?)

[Doaitse Swierstra]

On Jul 27, 2006, at 1:35 PM, Niklas Broberg wrote:

>
> I would really like to see this implemented, and I don't think the
> above is serious enough that we shouldn't. There may be some that
> don't agree though. Speak up now, or forever hold your peace!

Given the ever increasing complexity of Haskell as understood by the  
GHC, I think very
few people are looking forward to see further complications that do  
not really add much.

We alreday are at a stage where first year students trying to master  
haskell get error messages like

"Bool is not an instance of the class Num"

if they accidently write 1 + True (or something equivalent, but less  
obvious).

If you want to mess around why not call the function "provided" or  
something similar.

In short: you will not make Haskell a lot more popular by attracting  
category theorists, but by making
transitions from Java and C as smooth and surprise-free as possible  
(and this is already hard enough).

So I strongly suggest to leave this to the next major redesign of the  
language.

  Doaitse Swierstra