[Haskell-cafe] Re: APIs (was: Unexported functions are evil)

At 19:39 18/05/05 -0400, ajb@spamcop.net wrote:

G'day all.

Quoting Graham Klyne :

...

I think you raise an important point. Reading this, I realize that I have no principled basis for deciding what makes a good API, in any language.

Me neither. Though I have short reading list.

First off, this series of articles by Ken Arnold. They are a bit Java- centric, but it's all good:

http://www.artima.com/intv/perfect.html http://www.artima.com/intv/taste.html http://www.artima.com/intv/distrib.html http://www.artima.com/intv/sway.html http://www.artima.com/intv/decouple.html http://www.artima.com/intv/issues.html

Looks interesting. Thanks.

Some of the modern C++ books like "Modern C++ Design" and "Generative Programming" are worth a skim in lieu of a decent book on how to deal with true parametric polymorphism and typeclasses.

In a similar vein, I think Martin Fowler's book on refactoring has some interesting insights. #g ------------ Graham Klyne For email: http://www.ninebynine.org/#Contact