>>>     ([] , _  ) -> Nothing
>>
>> Yeh, it's really clear what this line does to a non-Haskeller :-)
>
> It's pretty standard notation for functional languages. Erlang uses the 
> same notation. If you get a two-element tuple with the first element being 
> an empty list, the result is an arbitrary atomic value (not unlike an 
> "enum") called "Nothing".

Sure, I didn't doubt there was a pretty easy explanation behind it, it's 
just [], _ and the whole statement syntax had no meaning to me before it was 
explained.  I would imagine once Andrew knew what -- and * does in C (I 
think < and ! are common enough not to need to explain?) he would know what 
the statement he highlighted meant too.  I don't see much difference.

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