----- Original Message -----
From: "Cale Gibbard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Brian Hulley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "Daniel Fischer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Haskell-cafe"
<haskell-cafe@haskell.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2006 5:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Haskell-cafe] Avoiding name collisions by using value spaces
instead of modules
On 08/01/06, Brian Hulley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
For example, suppose I'm writing a module M that deals with grammar,
where
the elements in a grammar rule are parameterised so that rules can be
written using strings but processed as if we'd used ints instead:
data Element a = Terminal a | Nonterminal a | Action a
data Rule a = Rule (Element a) [[Element a]]
Now I want to convert elements and rules from a to Int, so at the moment
I
have to write:
convertElement :: Element a -> CM (Element Int)
...
convertRule :: Rule a -> CM (Rule Int)
for some appropriate monad CM.
Whereas I would have much preferred to use just the word "convert" in
both
cases. It is tremendously annoying to have to suffix everything with the
type name.
This is what typeclasses are for.
class Convert c where
convert :: c a -> CM (c Int)
Type classes just seem overkill for this kind of thing. All I want is
compile time resolution of an overloaded identifier, whereas type classes
give all the machinery that would be needed if I wanted runtime ad-hoc
polymorphism, with all the attendant verbosity, just so that the compiler
can then optimize out the runtime polymorphism behind the scenes for cases
like the example above.
After all, I just want to write two very simple functions, so the effort to
factor into a type class + two instances, also having to include the Convert
c in the context whenever I call one of them just seems really painful.
Also, the word "Convert" is now used up as well...
Also, when I'm just writing code in an exploratory way, I don't know in
advance what the common things are that could be factored out into type
classes (except perhaps in very simple examples like that above), so while
I'm writing the code for the first time there is still a problem trying to
think up different names.
Regards,
Brian.
_______________________________________________
Haskell-Cafe mailing list
Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org
http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
