On 16/12/2011, Gregory Crosswhite <gcrosswh...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Dec 17, 2011, at 12:35 PM, Matthew Farkas-Dyck wrote: > >> (1) If we do (4), then the documentation ought to be adequate as-is. > > I see your point that if we do (4) then some and many are no longer > problematic for Maybe and [], and thus we don't need warnings for those > types. However, nonetheless we will *still* need *big warnings* *for the > sake of others who write Alternative instances* for new types to make sure > that these instances do not fall into the same trap as Maybe and []. That > is, we want to let future authors of instances know about the conditions > under which they will need to write their own versions of some and maybe in > order to make sure that these methods have sensible behavior.
> Finally, if we adopt (4) then we will need to change the documentation to > remove "least" from "least solutions of the equations" since the phrase will > no longer be correct. Better still, we could replace the phrase entirely > with something like "least *converging* solutions of the equations". (*) Ah, true. Sorry. > In addition to this, we also really need some additional documentation > explaining what the point of some and many are, since few people have any > clue about them. :-) Myself, I think it's quite clear by the axioms given, but I certainly shan't grouch about more/better documentation. > Cheers, > Greg > > (*) P.S: > > Dear people who are better at this kind of technical language than I: > > I am fully aware of the fact that the phrase "least converging solutions of > the equations [...]" is sloppy wording at best and absolutely wrong at > worst, but hopefully you should at least understand what I am *trying* to > get at. Thus, I would welcome either your feedback on what it is that I am > supposed to be thinking and saying, or an explanation about why the idea I > am trying to conceive and convey is so intrinsically poorly formed that I am > best off just giving up on it. ;-) Actually, now that I think of it, they are not, in general, the least converging solutions -- in the case of a parser, for example, (some (pure x)) would nevertheless diverge (I think). Perhaps "least sane solutions" (^_^) Cheers, Matthew Farkas-Dyck _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
