Am Sonntag, 17. Februar 2008 10:12 schrieb Colin Paul Adams:
The mnemonics is that Right x is "right" in the sense of correct. So, the error case has to be Left err .
As I said, this is sinister (i.e. regarding left-handed people as evil).
I hardly can believe that you mean this seriously. Do you really think that the Haskell architects wanted to offend left-handed people? What does assure you that the names of the Either constructors are about handedness? Are you really so sensitive that you want to make people think about all kinds of misinterpretations the usage of an everyday word may cause before they use it? I’d propose that people don’t search for non-existent defamation so that productivity doesn’t get buried under the search for “politically correct” words. Actually, I wouldn’t have dreamed of Left being related to left-handedness. To me, it has long been very clear that Left and Right were assigned its meaning this way round because otherwise you wouldn’t get Functor and Monad instances. A pure technical reason, having nothing to do with hands, politics and whatever you might think of.
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Best wishes, Wolfgang