Comment by EdNutting
2 days ago
I spy a functional programmer lurking in this abuse of Python ;)
Looks a lot like function composition with the arguments flipped, which in Haskell is `>>>`. Neat!
But since you’re writing imperative code and binding the result to a variable, you could also compare to `>>=`.
(https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/7.6.2/docs/html/libraries...)
Having spent a lot of time lurking on the frustratingly-slow-moving bikeshedding thread for the Javascript pipe operator [0], there's a great irony that a lot of people want a pipe operator because they don't want to deal with function composition in any way, other than just applying a series of operations to their data!
I think there's a big gap pedagogically here. Once a person understands functional programming, these kinds of composition shorthands make for very straightforward and intuitive code.
But, if you're just understanding basic Haskell/Clojure syntax, or stuck in the rabbit hole of "monad is a monoid" style introductions, a beginner could easily start to think: "This functional stuff is really making me need to think in reverse, to need to know my full pipeline before I type a single character, and even perhaps to need to write Lisp-like (g (f x)) style constructs that are quite the opposite of the way my data is flowing."
I'm quite partial to tutorials like Railway Oriented Programming [1] which start from a practical imperative problem, embrace the idea that data and code should feel like they flow in the same direction, and gradually guide the reader to understanding the power of the functional tools they can bring to bear!
If anything, I hope this hack sparks good conversations :)
[0] https://github.com/tc39/proposal-pipeline-operator/issues/91 - 6 years and 793 comments!
[1] https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/rop/