How about "print file=yonder, yo, de, do"

[Alex Martelli]

"Jeff Petkau" <jpet at eskimo.com> wrote in message
news:P6lt5.2978$nB4.375347 at paloalto-snr1.gtei.net...
    [snip]
> --Jeff (who used the print >>file thing today and discovered it
> wasn't so awful after all, although a coworker thought it looked
> like perl)

I agree with your coworker -- Perl, shellscripts, C++, or the
only unlovely/complicated part of Haskell, the dreaded *monads*
(where >> is syntax 'sugar' [?] for >>= \_ I believe... shudder;
at least it's normally hidden in 'do'...!-).

I have this deep psychoanalytical theory of mine about why >>
has such invariably-ugly connections: it looks like a sergeant's
chevron would if the sergeant wearing it was lying down, having
been knocked out cold by a well-placed punch.  A sufficient
fraction of language designers must have suffered under sadistic
training-sergeants during military service, to imbue the collective
unconscious of the language-designers set with repressed yearnings
for vengeance, which find symbolic expression in the "knocked-down
chevron" symbol.  Wow, Jung would be proud of me.

As a side effect, it's now clear that the proper pronunciation
of '>>' is "take-that-you-bastard".  (Study is ongoing on the
proper pronunciation of >>= in Haskell, but the current theory
suggests a dying 'Aaaaaargh...' [cfr 'Holy Grail']).


Alex