[Haskell-cafe] some ideas for Haskell', from Python

[Ketil Malde]

"Neil Mitchell" <ndmitchell at gmail.com> writes:

>> 1) In a Python string it is available the \U{name} escape, where name is
>>   a character name in the Unicode database.

>>   As an example:
>>       foo = u"abc\N{VULGAR FRACTION ONE HALF}"

Why not:

    import Unicode.Entities as U

    foo = "abc"++U.vulgar_fraction_one_half

> Hmm, looks nice, and sensible. But as soon as you've got \N{....} syntax I want:
>
> "foo\E{show i}bar"

  "foo"++show i++"bar"

Change the language - save two characters.

>> 2) In Python it is possible to import modules inside a function.
>>
>>   In Haskell something like:
>>
>>   joinPath' root name =
>>       joinPath [root, name]
>>       importing System.FilePath (joinPath)

> It does mean you need to read an entire file to see

Well, then you might as well allow multiple modules per file as per
the recent discussion.  And multi-module files will possibly let you
achieve the desired encapsulation without actually changing the
language. 

-k
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants