Re: [Haskell-cafe] Thoughts about redesigning "Num" type class

On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 10:08 AM, DreamApart AtHaskells wrote:

A feasible design is: [...]

I'm all for redesigning the numeric hierarchy, but I must (once again) raise my standard complaint against this sort of work, namely: there must be a class for semirings. Abelian groups are nice and all, but they are not the principle origin for rings. There are far more objects which have addition/multiplication without subtraction than there are objects with addition/subtraction without multiplication. Everyone I've seen suggest redesigning Num keeps overlooking this fact, since they're all so hung up on module/vector spaces. -- Live well, ~wren