To be fair, "<$>" is a synonym for "fmap", so "fmap capitalise readStrLn" is the go-to alternative. The "do" example is not only more verbose, but less general

To be fair, "<$>" is a synonym for "fmap", so "fmap capitalise readStrLn" is the go-to alternative. The "do" example is not only more verbose, but less general (it only applies to monads rather than all functors), and relies on special syntax (despite its awkwardness, "<$>" is still just a function call). You could also do "capitalise `fmap` readStrLn", which is kind of intermediate between the two :)