How can I understand “(.) . (.)”?

Question

I believe I understand fmap . fmap for Functors, but on functions it\'s hurting my head for months now.

I\'ve seen that you can just apply the definitio

Answer 1

It's easiest to write equations, combinators-style, instead of lambda-expressions: a b c = (\x -> ... body ...) is equivalent to a b c x = ... body ..., and vice versa, provided that x does not appear among {a,b,c}. So,

-- _B = (.)  

_B f g x = f (g x)
_B _B _B f g x y = _B (_B f) g x y
                 = (_B f) (g x) y
                 = _B f (g x) y
                 = f ((g x) y)
                 = f (g x y)

You discover this if, given f (g x y), you want to convert it into a combinatory form (get rid of all the parentheses and variable repetitions). Then you apply patterns corresponding to the combinators' definitions, hopefully tracing this derivation backwards. This is much less mechanical/automatic though.