Firstly, this isn't my abstraction. I never invented it and take no credit nor blame for it. I merely think that if it's helpful to someone, those of you who favor another abstraction shouldn't argue that it can't be helpful to them.

Secondly, I know that infix operators could very well be rewritten as prefix or even as postfix operators or as prefix functions. That's not what is being discussed here.

As I've said before, and I always tend to have to say when discussing this topic: I think there's merit in giving people pointers to an abstraction that is clearer to you, but that if they find an abstraction you find inferior clearer to them then why must you attack that abstraction?

I think both ways of looking at this can be helpful. I think some people learn better by digging deeper and figuring out what happens at the lower level sooner. I think others prefer to learn a few rules and to learn convoluted exceptions. I really do think some people learn better that way. In fact, in many fields of endeavor people are taught first approximations of ideas, then exceptions, and later taught completely different ways of thinking about the same things.

"'i' before 'i' except after 'c', except when it's an 'a' like in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'" ... except when it's not. Do you really expect kids just learning to spell to know which words are from French, German, Latin, and Greek roots? Irregular plural nouns are taught similarly. Gee, if only there was a programming language that was written by a linguist and could be learned piecemeal like a natural language...

In reply to Re^16: If you believe in Lists in Scalar Context, Clap your Hands by mr_mischief
in thread If you believe in Lists in Scalar Context, Clap your Hands by gone2015

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