John Hughes wrote:
What I implemented in GHC is an extension of the proposal below. The
proposal just mentions:
deriving Class for Type
In GHC I also added a form for newtype deriving of multi-parameter
type classes:
deriving (Class t1 ... tn) for Type
I think that it's close to what we ended up with when talking about
it at the Hackathon. My intuition about this syntax is that except
for the "for Type" part, it looks the same as a normal deriving
clause. The "for" part is just there to connect it to a data/newtype
declaration. This lets it pretty much use the normal code for
deriving declarations.
Stand-alone deriving declarations are currently a little bit weaker
than normal deriving clauses, since the current implementation does
not let you reference the type arguments of a newtype in the
arguments of an MPTC. See my response to Bulat on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
for more details.
/Björn
A suggestion re syntax:
With the newtype-deriving extension, the instances named in a deriving
clause are not just class names, but partial applications of class names
to all but the last argument. Why all but the last one? Because the last
one is the type being defined. Once deriving clauses are separated from
type definitions, then there is no type being defined any more--hence
the need for "for Type" in your syntax, and the introduction of another
keyword. But why single out one class parameter, once deriving clauses
are separated from type definitions? Why not simply write the FULL
application of the class in the deriving list? Thus:
deriving (Eq Foo, Ord Foo)
instead of
deriving (Eq, Ord) for Foo
I find the former syntax clearer and more readable, actually.
John
The exact same thing is currently being discussed on
[EMAIL PROTECTED], and we seem to have reached a consensus to adopt
the same syntax that you are proposing. Well, I was the only one who
ever like the original syntax, so "reached a consensus" means "everybody
else convinced me".
I'll implement this syntax instead and then write up a Haskell' proposal.
/Björn
_______________________________________________
Haskell-prime mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-prime
