Declaration vs. expression style

There are two main styles of writing functional programs, which are both supported by Haskell mainly because several language designers preferred these different styles.

There are characteristic elements of both styles.

Declaration style		Expression-style
where clause		let expression
Function arguments on left hand side:	f x = x*x	Lambda abstraction:	f = \x -> x*x
Pattern matching in function definitions:	f [] = 0	case expression:	f xs = case xs of [] -> 0
Guards on function definitions:	f [x] | x>0 = 'a'	if expression:	f [x] = if x>0 then 'a' else ...

See also

• http://research.microsoft.com/~simonpj/papers/history-of-haskell/