In C++ it is perfectly normal to have overloaded functions like
f : Int -> Int -> Int f : Int -> Char -> Int Something that may not be obvious about Haskell is that Haskell does NOT have overloaded functions/operators at all.
thanks, this was the core of my question. So by example, if I define a Date type as data Date = Date Int deriving Show representing a date by its serial number and want two constructors (conditions are only examples here) -- smart constructor with serialNumber date serialNumber | serialNumber > 0 = Date serialNumber | otherwise = error ("invalid serialNumber " ++ show serialNumber) -- smart constructor with day month year date2 day month year | month >= 1 && month <=12 = undefined | otherwise = error ("invalid month " ++ show month) there is no way of naming both functions date (instead of date2 above, which compiles), right ? I still think the basic reason is that date 5 would then either refer to the first constructor (i.e. representing a date with serial number 5) or a partial application of the second constructor (i.e. representing a function taking month and year and returning the date "5th month, year"). If this is the case, what would be the natural Haskell way of organizing the smart constructors ? Just number them as above ? Or naming them dateFromSerialNumber, dateFromDayMonthYear ? Or would you do it differently from the start ? Thank you Peter