For procedures which compute only a formula, there is an alternative syntax called the arrow syntax. This mimics the syntax for functions often used in algebra. For functions of one parameter the syntax is
symbol -> [local nameseq;] expr .
For 0 or more parameters, parameters are put in parentheses i.e.
( nameseq ) -> [local nameseq;] expr
The example which computes can be written more succinctly as
(x,y) -> x^2+y^2;
In Maple V Release 2, the syntax has been extended to allow the body of the procedure to be an if statement. So you can define piecewise functions. For example
x -> if x<0 then 0 elif x<1 then x elif x<2 then 2-x else 0 fi;