Hugh Perkins wrote:
On 7/14/07, *Andrew Coppin* <andrewcoppin wrote:
> That is my recollection also. (Don't ask me *which* monads, mind you...)
In the case in point, the law breakage never the less matches
"intuition"; personally, I ignore the monad laws on the basis that if
you're doing something "sane", the laws will automatically hold anyway.
(But maybe I'm just a renegade?)
Yeah, the laws confused me for a while as well. Hint to guys writing
Haskell documentation, we're not all doing CS phD you know ;-) We
just want to get things done ;-)
Andrew, I found comfort and explanation in this article
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Monads_as_containers :
"The functions return and bind need to satisfy a few laws
<http://www.nomaware.com/monads/html/laws.html#laws> in order to make
a monad, but if you define them in a sensible way given what they are
supposed to do, the laws will work out. The laws are only a formal way
to give the informal description of the meanings of return and bind I
have here."
Oh, I *understand* the laws - I just think that if you're trying to
explain how to *use* (not *write*) monads, you really don't need to
emphasize this "laws" business. IMHO...
_______________________________________________
Haskell-Cafe mailing list
Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org
http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
