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Are there pronounceable names for common Haskell operators? [closed]

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What is >> in Haskell?

Essentially, a >> b can be read like "do a then do b , and return the result of b ". It's similar to the more common bind operator >>= .

Is there and operator in Haskell?

In Haskell we have or operator to compare the values of the variable, this operator also comes under the lexical notation of the Haskell programming language. This operator works in the same way as any other programming language, it just returns true or false based on the input we have provided.

What is Haskell operator?

Haskell provides special syntax to support infix notation. An operator is a function that can be applied using infix syntax (Section 3.4), or partially applied using a section (Section 3.5).


Here is how I pronounce them:

>>=     bind
>>      then
*>      then
->      to                a -> b: a to b
<-      bind              (as it desugars to >>=)
<$>     (f)map
<$      map-replace by    0 <$ f: "f map-replace by 0"
<*>     ap(ply)           (as it is the same as Control.Monad.ap)
$                         (none, just as " " [whitespace])
.       pipe to           a . b: "b pipe-to a"
!!      index
!       index / strict    a ! b: "a index b", foo !x: foo strict x
<|>     or / alternative  expr <|> term: "expr or term"
++      concat / plus / append
[]      empty list
:       cons
::      of type / as      f x :: Int: f x of type Int
\       lambda
@       as                go ll@(l:ls): go ll as l cons ls
~       lazy              go ~(a,b): go lazy pair a, b

| sym  | pronunciation                                    |
|------|--------------------------------------------------|
| |    | "such that"                                      |
| <-   | "is drawn from"                                  |
| =    | "is defined to be" / "is defined as"             |
| ::   | "has type" / "of type" / "is of type"            |
| ->   | "a function that takes ... and returns a ..." /  |
|      |                          "function that maps" /  |
|      |                          "is a function from" /  |
|      |                                          "to"    |
| $    | "apply"                                          |
| _    | "whatever"                                       |
| !!   | "index"                                          |
| ++   | "concat"                                         |
| []   | "empty list"                                     |
| :    | "cons"                                           |
| \    | "lambda"                                         |
| =>   | "implies" / "then"                               |
| *>   | "then"                                           |
| <$>  | "fmap" / "dollar cyclops"                        |
| <$   | "map-replace by"                                 |
| <*>  | "ap" / "star cyclops"                            |
| .    | "pipe to" / "compose" / "dot"                    |
| <|>  | "or"                                             |
| @    | "as"                                             |
| ~    | "lazy"                                           |
| <=<  | "left fish"                                      |

My personal favorites are "left fish" (<=<) and "right fish" (>=>). Which are just the left and right Kleisli composition of monads operators. Compose fishy, compose!


I took the liberty to assemble the answers into a very simple haskell program, that only through pattern matching tries to translate haskell code into english. I call it letterator because it translates symbols into letters

-- letterator

main = translateLn <$> getLine >>= putStrLn

translateLn :: String -> String
translateLn = unwords . map t . words

t :: String -> String -- t(ranslate)

-- historical accurate naming
t "=" = "is equal too" -- The Whetstone of Witte - Robert Recorde (1557)

-- proposed namings
-- src http://stackoverflow.com/a/7747115/1091457
t ">>=" = "bind"
t "*>"  = "then"
t "->"  = "to"                   -- a -> b: a to b
t "<$"  = "map-replace by"       --  0 <$ f: "f map-replace by 0"
t "<*>" = "ap(ply)"              --  (as it is the same as Control.Monad.ap)
t "!!"  = "index"
t "!"   = "index/strict"         --  a ! b: "a index b", foo !x: foo strict x
t "<|>" = "or/alternative"       -- expr <|> term: "expr or term"
t "[]"  = "empty list"
t ":"   = "cons"
t "\\"  = "lambda"
t "@"   = "as"                   -- go ll@(l:ls): go ll as l cons ls
t "~"   = "lazy"                 -- go ~(a,b): go lazy pair a, b
-- t ">>"  = "then"
-- t "<-"  = "bind"              -- (as it desugars to >>=)
-- t "<$>" = "(f)map"
-- t "$"   = ""                  -- (none, just as " " [whitespace])
-- t "."   = "pipe to"           -- a . b: "b pipe-to a"
-- t "++"  = "concat/plus/append" 
-- t "::"  = "ofType/as"         -- f x :: Int: f x of type Int

-- additional names
-- src http://stackoverflow.com/a/16801782/1091457
t "|"   = "such that"
t "<-"  = "is drawn from"
t "::"  = "is of type" 
t "_"   = "whatever"
t "++"  = "append"
t "=>"  = "implies"
t "."   = "compose"
t "<=<" = "left fish"
-- t "="   = "is defined as"
-- t "<$>" = "(f)map"

-- src http://stackoverflow.com/a/7747149/1091457
t "$"   = "of" 

-- src http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28471898/colloquial-terms-for-haskell-operators-e-g?noredirect=1&lq=1#comment45268311_28471898
t ">>"  = "sequence"
-- t "<$>" = "infix fmap"
-- t ">>=" = "bind"

--------------
-- Examples --
--------------

-- "(:) <$> Just 3 <*> Just [4]" 
-- meaning "Cons applied to just three applied to just list with one element four"
t "(:)"  = "Cons"
t "Just" = "just"
t "<$>"  = "applied to"
t "3"    = "three" -- this is might go a bit too far
t "[4]"  = "list with one element four" -- this one too, let's just see where this gets us

-- additional expressions to translate from
-- src http://stackoverflow.com/a/21322952/1091457
-- delete (0, 0) $ (,) <$> [-1..1] <*> [-1..1]
-- (,) <$> [-1..1] <*> [-1..1] & delete (0, 0)
-- liftA2 (,) [-1..1] [-1..1] & delete (0, 0)
t "(,)" = "tuple constructor"
t "&" = "then" -- flipped `$`

-- everything not matched until this point stays at it is
t x = x

+      plus
-      minus (OR negative OR negate for unary use)
*      multiply OR times
/      divide
.      dot OR compose
$      apply OR of