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Comment by igravious | Hacker News Reader

What? Are you saying that I can legitimately read

    contains :: NameClass -> QName -> Bool

two ways? Like,

    contains :: (NameClass, QName) -> Bool

And

    contains :: NameClass -> (QName, Bool)

? What about four types?

    contains :: Urk -> NameClass -> QName -> Bool

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No, a -> b -> c always means a -> (b -> c).

a -> b -> c -> d always means a -> (b -> (c -> d)).

"->" is right-associative.

You should first understand currying. If I have a function f :: A -> B -> C -> D, every time I apply an argument, as in f a where a is of type A (b :: B, c :: C, ...), you get a new function back of type B -> C -> D. Read :: as "has type." Therefore

f :: A -> B -> C -> D

f a :: B -> C -> D

f a b :: C -> D

f a b c :: D

This is why Haskell's function call syntax seems a bit funny, and the typing syntax (->) seems funny. Every time you apply an argument you get a new object back which represents the result of applying the function. Once you've applied everything to the left of the rightmost type, you have the result.

It's a statement of implication. If I have an a and an f, the most I can have is a function which takes arguments of type B, C, and D, and so forth.

Not quite. It's equivalent to either

    contains :: (NameClass, QName) -> Bool

    contains :: NameClass -> (QName -> Bool)

In other words, you can treat it as a function taking two arguments, or one function taking one argument and returning another function.

It is equivalent to the second, not the first. The first is a completely distinct type -- though you can certainly write a function with that type, given the original function, by uncurrying it.

FWIW, I think the person you are responding to is using the non-Haskell requested mental syntax used by the person who asked the original question, in order so they better understand the semantics (even if at a cost of confusing them for later development in Haskell).

Yup. They're distinct types, but mentally they are the same (and the standard library has functions to convert between the two forms).

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