On Mar 10, 2013, at 11:47 AM, Peter Caspers
Thank you all for your answers, this helps a lot. To clarify my last point ...
Also again, taking this way I can not provide several constructors taking inputs of different types, can I ? Sorry, didn't get what you mean here.
In C++ it is perfectly normal to have overloaded functions like
f : Int -> Int -> Int f : Int -> Char -> Int
in coexistence, because the compiler can infer (at compile time) what function to call by looking at the arguments types.
In Haskell I think this is not possible simply due to the flexibility given by partial function application, i.e.
f 5
would not be well defined any more, it could be Int -> Int or Char -> Int.
Well, that's what typeclasses are for. class F a where f :: Int -> a -> Int instance F Int where f = ... instance F Char where f = ... ghci> :t f 5 ghci> f 5 :: (F a) => a -> Int