rocon...@theorem.ca wrote:
I wanted to pass this idea around the cafe to get some thoughts before
submitting a trac on this topic.
I'd like to see the mtl removed from the Haskell Platform.
The mtl was a tremendous step forward when it was developed. However,
we have learned a few things about monad transformers since the
development of the mtl, and it is time that we moved forward.
I would welcome a newer cleaner library to replace mtl. One caveat, in
terms of the HP is that I'd like to see one clear alternative be
blessed, instead of listing the alternatives. I think a big part of the
reason many people have stuck with mtl is that they lack sufficient
knowledge to be able to look at all the options and know which is the
best and why, so they choose the one that is familiar.
This is similar to the Parsec problem. At the time it was introduced it
was a major step forward, but these days there are a number of issues
people consistently complain about. There's a large set of parser
combinator libraries out there, but no one of them is clearly superior
so people stick with what is familiar.
3) I am told by many people that the order of the state and value pair
in `State' is backwards. Actually, I'm not entirely sure what the issue
is here, but I trust the people who say this.
Lacking type-level functions like flip, we can define the Functor ((,)
s) easier than the reverse. This pretties type signatures up
significantly when we start composing things[1] and doing other
type-level programming. This is also the ordering used in dependently
typed languages (replacing (->) with \Pi and (,) with \Sigma). Et cetera.
The current order makes the definition of (>>=) appear very marginally
prettier, but it makes type signatures much uglier everywhere it's used.
[1] e.g. State s = Reader s . Writer s = (->) s . (,) s = /\a. s->(s,a)
--
Live well,
~wren
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