I don't think anyone is calling it useless at this point. I could not see a use for it initially and it was quickly pointed out that there are in fact some infrequent use cases where a lazy sum is the best option. I think this is more a discussion about "principle of least surprise" or which use case is most frequent.
I am pretty new to haskell so I may just be missing something basic (I welcome an explaination for why I am looking at this the wrong way), but if your argument is on consistency then doesn't it follow that number litterals should be defined using a church encoding or some equivalent? -Keith On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 7:53 AM, Thomas Davie<tom.da...@gmail.com> wrote: > No, I think it's extremely useful. It highlights that numbers can both be > lazy and strict, and that the so called "useless" lazy sum, is in fact, > useful. > > Bob > > On 18 Jun 2009, at 13:29, Keith Sheppard wrote: > >> OK, I think I went off on a tangent that isn't very useful anyway >> >> thanks >> -Keith >> >> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 6:32 PM, Lennart >> Augustsson<lenn...@augustsson.net> wrote: >>> >>> The creators of Haskell didn't pick any particular representation for >>> numbers. >>> (Well, literals are kind of In..tegers.) You can pick what types you >>> make instances of Num. >>> Some of them are lazy, some of them are strict. >>> >>> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 11:05 PM, Keith Sheppard<keiths...@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>>> >>>> In lambda calculus numbers are just functions and you evaluate them >>>> just like any other function. Haskell could have chosen the same >>>> representation for numbers and all evaluation on numbers would be lazy >>>> (assuming normal order evaluation). I think that would have been the >>>> "Purist Lazy" way to go. That is not the way the creators of Haskell >>>> designed language though... am i missing something? >>>> >>>> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 4:05 PM, Lennart >>>> Augustsson<lenn...@augustsson.net> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> What do you mean by "literals are strict"? Strictness is a semantic >>>>> property of functions, and while literals can be overloaded to be >>>>> functions I don't know what you mean. >>>>> >>>>> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 9:50 PM, Keith Sheppard<keiths...@gmail.com> >>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Haskell's numeric literals are strict. You wouldn't want that to >>>>>> change right? It seems to me that having sum and product be strict is >>>>>> consistent with this. >>>>>> >>>>>> -Keith >>>>>> >>>>>> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 11:15 AM, Thomas Davie<tom.da...@gmail.com> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On 17 Jun 2009, at 13:32, Yitzchak Gale wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Henk-Jan van Tuyl wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> reverse >>>>>>>>> maximum >>>>>>>>> minimum >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Oh yes, please fix those also! >>>>>>> >>>>>>> import Prelude.Strict? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Honestly, these functions are ones that I've *deffinately* used lazy >>>>>>> versions of, in fact, in the cases of minimum/maximum I've even used >>>>>>> ones >>>>>>> that are super-lazy and parallel using unamb. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> It would be extremely odd to randomly decide "most people would want >>>>>>> this to >>>>>>> be strict" based on no knowledge of what they're actually doing. >>>>>>> Instead, >>>>>>> why don't we stand by the fact that haskell is a lazy language, and >>>>>>> that the >>>>>>> functions we get by default are lazy, and then write a strict prelude >>>>>>> as I >>>>>>> suggest above to complement the lazy version. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Bob >>>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>>> Haskell-Cafe mailing list >>>>>>> Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org >>>>>>> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> keithsheppard.name >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> Haskell-Cafe mailing list >>>>>> Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org >>>>>> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe >>>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> keithsheppard.name >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Haskell-Cafe mailing list >>>> Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org >>>> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe >>>> >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> keithsheppard.name >> _______________________________________________ >> Haskell-Cafe mailing list >> Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org >> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe > > -- keithsheppard.name _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe