I quadruple the vote that the basic algebra proposal is too complicated. However I don't see how one could write even moderately complex programs and not wish for a partial ordering class or the ability to use standard terms for groups and whatnot. the current proposal is much more to my liking. An important thing is that in Haskell it is easy to build up functionality with fine grained control, but difficult or impossible to tear it down, You can't take a complicated class and split it up into smaller independent pieces(not easily at least). but you can take the functionality of several smaller classes and build up a 'bigger' class. Because of this feature one should always err on the side of simplicity and smaller classes when writing re-usable code. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we don't need a Prelude which will provide all of the mathematical structure everyone will need or want, but rather one which doesn't inhibit the ability to build what is needed upon it in a reasonable fashion. (I don't consider un-importing the prelude reasonable for re-usable code and libraries meant to be shared.) in short, three cheers for the new proposal. My one request is that if at all possible, make some sort of partial ordering class part of the changes, they are just way to useful in all types of programs to not have a standard abstraction. John -- -------------------------------------------------------------- John Meacham http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~john/ California Institute of Technology, Alum. john@foo.net --------------------------------------------------------------