No, it's possible -- it's done under the hood in GPH (parallel Haskell); it just doesn't exist in normal GHC... On Tue, 28 Oct 2003, Dimitry Golubovsky wrote:
Hi,
Hal Daume III wrote:
Hmm... I can write out functions using the "Show (a -> b)" instance, but there's no matching "Read (a -> b)".
Show (a -> b) is a bogus instances -- you won't actually be able to use it for marshalling functions.
Well, marshalling functions (or storing-restoring some internal forms of them) might be especially nice... This would mean I can declare and compile a function on my side of a network connection (for example), and then send it to the other end for evaluation, and then get the result. Like a database request. Is this something absolutely impossible in Haskell and by what reason? Just because of strong typing (forgive my stupidity ;)? Or are there some deeper theoretical limitations?
-- Hal Daume III | hdaume@isi.edu "Arrest this man, he talks in maths." | www.isi.edu/~hdaume