Small fixes for let and do in Syntax.md

[andreasthoelke]

Small fixes in the let and do documentation.

[hdgarrood]

Thanks, this is looking great so far!

[hdgarrood]

I think I'd prefer "introduces" rather than "defines" here; what does everyone else think?

[chexxor]

I would only change it if defines is wrong. Thanks for fixing this, BTW!

[hdgarrood]

I think "defines" is wrong — the keyword can't really define anything by itself, it's just a keyword. I guess I was really asking if anyone can think of any better alternatives to my suggestion.

[andreasthoelke]

I agree that "defines" is not correct.
"The let keyword introduces a collection of local declarations, .." is fine, I think.

[hdgarrood]

@andreasthoelke Thanks very much! This looks good to merge now as far as I can tell, was there anything else you think wants doing or should I go ahead and merge?

[andreasthoelke]

When reading the descriptions of let and where in conjunction, I noticed that the current version is not making the difference too clear.

We could go:

let expressions introduce a list of local declarations (variable bindings?), which may be mutually recursive, and which may include type declarations:
..

where clauses can be added at the end of a function declaration, and allow to bind variables (set up declarations) that are visible within the surrounding function context.

[hdgarrood]

I prefer the previous version with "The let keyword introduces a collection of local declarations...", actually.

[hdgarrood]

I think this sentence was okay before; what was your reasoning behind this change?

[hdgarrood]

Specifically, it's incorrect to say "function declarations", you can also do e.g.

pi :: Number
pi = 4.0 * (sum (take 100 (taylorSeries arctan 1.0))
  where
  taylorSeries = [...]
  arctan = [...]

It would be incorrect to call this a "function declaration" because it isn't declaring a function; you can use a where clause in any kind of value declaration which is why "value declaration" is preferable. Also, "... allow to bind variables ..." is grammatically incorrect. Most importantly though, I think it would be best to make the structure of this sentence resemble that of the earlier sentence that tells you what the let keyword does as much as we reasonably can, so that it's as clear as possible that let and where do basically the same thing.

[hdgarrood]

I'm not really sure what this latest iteration adds over what we had previously, ideally I think we would just add "introduces" to the let sentence and leave the where sentence as-is. Can we please just do that for now, and then potentially discuss further wording changes in a separate PR? Just because the rest of the changes are clearly ready to go now and everyone agrees on them.

[hdgarrood]

Great, thanks very much :)

[andreasthoelke]

Ok, I changed this back.