dialyzer and non-proper lists

[Kostis Sagonas]

Ulf Wiger wrote:
 >
 > It's been argued that non-proper lists can always be 
 > avoided at minimal expense.
 > 
 > How about this example:
 > 
 > ...
 > 21> ets:select(T, [{{"foo" ++ '_'},[],['$_']}]).
 > ...
 > 
 > Never mind the ++. It expands before the select() call into
 > [$f, $o, $o | '_'], which is still a non-proper list, and the way
 > you're supposed to do it in ets:match() and ets:select()

>From the little I understand this example, apologies if I have totally
misunderstood this, I would say that this has nothing to do with
improper lists, but with (arguably brain-damaged design decisions) to:

 1. Have match specifications described as lists, and

 2. Being unable to have general selectors such as

	lists:prefix("foo", '$1')

    in the guard list (i.e., in the [] in Ulf's example above),
    which arguably are more natural.  Btw, is there any really good
    reason why the so called GuardList has to be restricted to
    Erlang guards?

Kostis