[jerf]

This is why I said to be sure to consider all the things you can do with function arguments. You can't in general assume that f(3) for a two-part argument can be read by the compiler as a curry, because the second argument may have a default. You also have to watch out in dynamic languages because the resulting function instead of a value may propagate a long way before being caught, making refactoring a challenge. (In Haskell it'll always blow up because the type system is strong, although you may not get the nicest error.) Imagine you have a whole bunch of code using this approach, and then you set a default value for the second argument. Imagine you're applying it to a whole bunch of code that wasn't written to optimize the first parameter as the one you want to partially apply.

The end result is you need a lot more noise in the partial call to indicate what it is you are doing, no matter how you slice it, and it interacts poorly with default parameters (which almost every language has nowadays) anyhow.