On 04/16/2016 02:53 PM, Alexey Muranov wrote:
Sorry for the question that probably is already answered somewhere, but i do not get it from the basic documentation i have looked at so far.
Is monomorphism restriction really necessary, or is it just a convenience?
In the example from A History of Haskell
genericLength :: Num a => [b] -> a
f xs = (len, len) where len = genericLength xs
can't the monomorphism restriction be replaced with just adding the signature
f :: Num a => [b] -> (a, a)
?
No; the let binding 'len' would still generalize. It would generalize even if you assigned 'f' a monotype such as [b] -> (Int, Int). Now, the compiler *could* later realize that the polymorphic value 'len' is evaluated twice at the same type and perform a CSE, but I guess the standard authors were not comfortable with *requiring* that kind of optimization from all compliant compilers. Of course, nowadays we have scoped type variables, so MR is no longer strictly necessary. Sometimes it is desirable in that it gives the behavior that you would intuitively expect; sometimes, the opposite. Roman