
I'm fairly new to Haskell, and starting to write some big projects. Previously I used OO exclusively, mostly Python. I really miss the "namespace" capabilities... a class can have a lot of generic method names which may be identical for several different classes because there is no ambiguity. In my musical application, many "objects" (or in Haskell, data) have a time associated with them. In Python I would have an accessor function called "time" in every class. So if I have objects/data note1, cursor1, and staff1, Python: note1.time() cursor1.time() staff1.time() Haskell needs something like note_time note1 cursor_time cursor1 staff_time staff1 which is a lot more visually disorganized. What's worse, I have a moderate case of RSI (repetitive strain injury) so I type slowly and depend on abbreviations a lot. I use the souped-up abbreviation capabilities of Emacs. Let's say I have a field/member-variable called orientedPcSet that is used across many classes. In Python, I can create an abbreviation for that and it is useful many times. In Haskell, I might need someType_orientedPcSet someOtherType_orientedPcSet thirdType_orientedPcSet which prevents me from using abbreviations effectively (especially the dynamic-completion feature). (It would help to make the underscore not part of word syntax, but that's not ideal.) So I'm thinking of moving to a scheme in Haskell using modules, most types being defined in their own modules, and doing qualified imports. Generic names like 'time' can be defined in each module w/o clashing. Then I have Note.time note1 Cursor.time cursor1 Staff.time staff1 This is very useful because I can define abbreviations for the type name and for oft-used accessor function names and these abbrevs are more organized, easier to remember, and easier to combine. I would be interested in comments... is this a good way to do things? Am I trying too hard to impose OO on Haskell and is there a better way? Thanks, Mike