Why not use juxtaposition to indicate function application

Sat Mar 17 00:38:27 EDT 2012

On 3/16/2012 9:14 AM, bruno.desthuilliers at gmail.com wrote:
> On Mar 16, 1:45 pm, Ray Song<emacs... at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I confess i've indulged in Haskell and found
>> f a
>> more readable than
>> f(a)
>> Hmmm... What about:
>> f a b
>> versus
>> f(a(b))
>> or was it supposed to be read as
>> f(a)(b)
>>> or as
>> f(a, b)
>> ?-)

One also has to consider Python calls with *args, **kwds, and arg=obj. 
These are all compile-time SyntaxErrors unless inside parens that follow 
a expression.
Also, function calls, especially in a functional language without 
side-effects, do not usually occur in isolation.
'f(a) + 3' would have to be written as '(f a) + 3', so saving of parens 
anyway.
Also, is 'f a - 2' f(a -2) or f(a, -2)? A new precedence rule is needed 
to disambiguage.
-- 
Terry Jan Reedy