To make chaining of calls simpler. Write

f()->g()->h()->i()

the other way and you'll see why Bjarne asked for the shorthand.

-rob

On Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 11:12 PM Noel Chiappa <jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:

> From: Rob Pike

> Convenient though the shorthand may be, it always bothered me as
> inconsistent and misleading.

As someone who made very extensive use of procedure pointers (most notably in
upcalls, which never caught on, alas), I couldn't agree more.

Two very different things are happenging, but with the shorthand notation,
they share an identical representation. And for what? To save three characters?

Noel