From: Radu Grigore <radugrigore@gmail.com>

> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 11:13:58 +0100, Frédéric Gava
> <frederic.gava@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> > When I teach Ocaml, many students are lost with
> > this differences.
> 
> What puzzeled my is that List/String methods take the structure on
> which they act as the first parameter while the Set/Map methods take
> the structure on which they act as their last parameter. Is there a
> reason?

There seems to be an habit of having side-effecting functions take
their "object" as first parameter, while side-effect-free functions
take them as last.

One reason is that it is natural to specialize side-effecting function
on their "object", as it doesn't change (only its contents do), while
effect-free functions are best seen as transforming their object
(which should be last).

If you respect this convention, the type tells you about the semantics
:-)

Jacques Garrigue