🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <NICKH.92Oct5160904@VOILA.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU>, nickh@CS.CMU.EDU (Nick Haines) writes:
> In article <CARLTON.92Oct5110856@scws8.harvard.edu> carlton@scws8.harvard.edu (david carlton) writes:

>> Why does SML support functions of multiple arguments using both tuples
>> and curried functions, anyways?

> 1. All functions in SML take one argument. Thinking of "functions of
> multiple arguments" results in confusion of the sort you show in your
> questions.

Sure, I understand that; and if I wanted to define functions taking
multiple arguments which were implemented by lists or some other
method, I could.  It's just that the language itself supports tuples
and curried functions more than it does other ways of implementing
multiple arguments.  For example, there is special syntax for writing
curried functions; if you convert an infix function to a prefix
function, you get a function taking a 2-tuple as an argument; various
library functions use the one form or the other for multiple arguments
or accept functional arguments using the one form or the other;
various library functions taking multiple arguments even come with
both a curried version of the function and a tuple version of the
function.  (I'm not familiar enough with the language to know whether
or not those last two are part of the language definition, but their
existence in some implementations shows that this is an issue.)  So
it's more complicated than just saying "All functions in SML take one
argument."

david carlton
carlton@husc.harvard.edu

       Did I do an INCORRECT THING??