On 2012-10-13, at 10:18 , Steven D'Aprano wrote:
Perhaps instead I would like it if all operators were objects with e.g. special __infix__ methods.
I believe that Haskell treats operators as if they were function objects
That is correct for binary operators. The unary minus is (currently) a keyword and sugar for the negate function[0].
So `map (-) values` is not going to negate all values, it's going to partially apply the binary `(-)` to all values.
but I think that puts the emphasis on the wrong thing.
I'm not sure I understand that, what does it put the emphasis on? Note that these operators — when generic — tend to live in typeclasses, so the actual implementation of the behavior of the operator for the set of its arguments is defined where and when the corresponding typeclass instance is created. This is essentially how Python's own operators (and some builtins e.g. ``divmod`` or ``pow``) work (except Haskell doesn't have a reflected operands fallback)
[0] http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/base/latest/doc/html/Prelude.htm...