On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 7:46 PM, Andrew Coppin
The sad thing is, it's not actually complicated. The documentation just makes it seem like it is! :-(
This is so true for a heck of a lot of things. Existential quantification being just one of them. Loads of things in Haskell have big powerful (but scary) names which I really think intimidate people, the situation isn't helped when a lot of tutorials use the theoretical basis for the construct as a starting point, rather then actually describing the construct from the perspective of a programmer first (see Monads). Haskell really isn't that difficult compared to other languages, but people still get the impression that you need to be a big brain on a stick to use it, terminology is certainly part of the equation. This doesn't mean that making up new words is always better, but we should certainly strive to exploit any opportunity to clarify the issue and (this means that haddock comments and language books/tutorials shouldn't refer to academic papers first and foremost, but use common English and practical examples to describe what's being used, and academic nerds can consult the footnotes for their fill of papers containing pages of squiggly symbols!). -- Sebastian Sylvan +44(0)7857-300802 UIN: 44640862