On 19/12/2011, at 5:46 PM, Gregory Crosswhite wrote: [improved Monoid documentation] I would go so far as to point out that "mappend is a generalisation of Data.List.sum, Data.List.product, Data.List.and, and Data.List.or, where the initial value and combining rule are implied by the type.
This additional information unfortunately makes the documentation more verbose,
One man's "more verbose" is another man's "less cryptic". I really don't like the emphasis on Num, as if it was a bizarre feature of Num that there's more than one Monoid reading for it. This is a *common* property of data types. For example, Sets can be seen as monoids with empty and union; and Sets with a universe can also be seen as monoids with universe and intersection. The more I think about it, the less idea I have _what_ to expect for _any_ instance of Monoid.