On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 4:57 AM, Simon Marlow <simon...@microsoft.com> wrote:
> Remember that FilePath is not part of the debate, since neither [Char] nor > Text are correct representations of FilePath. Yes. > If we want to do an evaluation of the pedagogical value of [Char] vs. Text, I > suggest writing something like a regex matcher in both and comparing the two. > One more thing: historically, performance considerations have been given a > fairly low priority in the language design process for Haskell, and rightly > so. That doesn't mean performance has been ignored altogether (for example, > seq), but it is almost never the case that a concession in other language > design principles (e.g. consistency, simplicity) is made for performance > reasons alone. We should remember, when thinking about changes to Haskell, > that Haskell is the way it is because of this uncompromising attitude, and we > should be glad that Haskell is not burdened with (many) legacy warts that > were invented to work around performance problems that no longer exist. I'm > not saying that this means we should ignore Text as a performance hack, just > that performance should not come at the expense of good language design. For pedagogical purposes (which seems to be the primary argument for String = [Char]), I am far less concerned about performance than correctness. After going through the discussion this morning again, looking at various arguments, I am not really sure that Haskell isn't burdened with legacy warts ;-) -- Gaby _______________________________________________ Haskell-prime mailing list Haskell-prime@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-prime
