Sun, 11 Feb 2001 16:03:37 -0800, Ashley Yakeley
Apologies if this has been discussed and I missed it. When it comes to writing a 'geek' prelude, what was wrong with the Basic Algebra Proposal found in ftp://ftp.botik.ru/pub/local/Mechveliani/basAlgPropos/ ? Perhaps it could benefit from multi-parameter classes?
Let me quote myself why I don't like this proposal: - It's too complicated. - Relies on controversial type system features, like undecidable instances and overlapping instances. - Relies on type system features that are not implemented and it's not clear if they can be correctly designed or implemented at all, like "domain conversions". - Has many instances that should not exist because the relevant type does not have the class property; they return Nothing or fail, instead of failing to compile. - Properties like commutativity cannot be specified in Haskell. The compiler won't be able to automatically perform any optimizations based on commutativity. - belongs is strange. IMHO it should always return True for valid arguments, and invalid arguments should be impossible to construct if the validity can be checked at all. - Tries to turn a compiled language into an interpreted language. FuncExpr, too much parsing (with arbitrary rules hardwired into the language), too much runtime checks. - It's too complicated. - It's not true that it's "not necessary to dig into mathematics". I studied mathematics and did not have that much of algebra. - I perfer minBound to looking at element under Just under Just under tuple of osetBounds. - Uses ugly character and string arguments that tune the behavior, e.g. in syzygyGens, divRem, canFr. I like Haskell98's divMod+quotRem better. - Uses unneeded sample arguments, e.g. in toEnum, zero, primes, read. - Have I said that it's too complicated? There were lengthy discussions about it... -- __("< Marcin Kowalczyk * qrczak@knm.org.pl http://qrczak.ids.net.pl/ \__/ ^^ SYGNATURA ZASTÊPCZA QRCZAK