On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 03:29:55PM -0500, Rick Murphy wrote:
I understand from [1] that a distinguised type is defined as a type with only one non-bottom value and that value is in fact identical to the name of the type. [1] provides the unit type () as an example of a Haskell distinguished type.
Would it be accurate to say that an approach to creating distinguished types in Haskell is to create data types with a single constructor whose name is identical to the data type name?
Well, I don't have not even one milliOleg. That said, I think he used "distinguished" to mean that it is a "curious" data type included in the language. Maybe he also meant that, at least in Haskell, the type may receive special notation (you can't say 'data () = ()'). HTH, -- Felipe.