On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 7:56 AM, John A. De Goes <j...@n-brain.net> wrote:
> Don't overlook the advantages of using familiar operators and names: you > have some intuition about '+' and 'map', so if you see them, then you'll > have some idea what they do (assuming the author is neither stupid nor > malicious). However, if you see some operator like '$>+' or some name like > 'pp3', then you probably won't have any intuition about it. > > Writing good software is about conveying intentions, and part of the way we > can do that is relying on what other people already know. Which means using > familiar names and operators when it is helpful to do so. Keep in mind that such intuitions often have a formalization. We have an intuition about what "map" means. When we dig deep and try to write down what that intuition is, the following appears: map id = id map (f . g) = map f . map g Now that we have an operation and laws, it is reasonable to use a typeclass. To me, typeclasses are at their best when you have a real abstraction to encode. If you are having trouble using a typeclass and need C++-style ad-hoc overloading, it's likely you are trying to encode a "fake" abstraction -- one that has only linguistic, rather than mathematical meaning. Haskell is not an isolated linguist. Her low tolerance for vagueness strikes again. Luke > > > I would >> consider any book which is hard >> to read because of that badly written. Things are quite similar with the >> code. >> > > I consider the current state of affairs quite poor: namely, abuse of type > classes and alternate names and operators that aren't very suggestive, but > were chosen purely to avoid conflicts. > > Programming language should be easy to reason about for both computers >> and humans. Compiler should therefore disallow programming style that is >> inaccessible for potential readers. Want to overload something? Well, >> use typeclasses to be explicit about it. >> > > > Type classes were not designed for name overloading. They're designed to > factor out common patterns in programming. You shouldn't use a type class > just because you want to use a name or operator. > > And as I said before, if you want to "disallow programming style that is > inaccessible for potential readers," then you should disallow the current > state of affairs. > > Regards, > > John A. De Goes > N-BRAIN, Inc. > The Evolution of Collaboration > > http://www.n-brain.net | 877-376-2724 x 101 > > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-Cafe mailing list > Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org > http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe >
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