Olaf Klinke
fmap f. If I could re-define Haskell from scratch, I'd probably name the Functor type class function 'map'
As it was in Haskell 1.4
That's interesting, I did not know this. Thanks for sharing. Are there any public records as to why the decision was made to re-name 'map' to 'fmap'? I can not find any mention in the Haskell98 report(s).
Sorry, I don’t know.
There is a stackoverflow thread (#6824255) which mentions paedagogical reasons, simplifying error messages.
That is the reason that I remember, the problem being that it makes sense to teach map on lists before teaching type classes, so error messages mentioning classes were considered confusing. I was against this, preferring that teaching should use a specialised prelude, but this was rejected on the grounds that teachers wanted to teach “the real language”. I still think this was a mistake. — Jón -- Jón Fairbairn Jon.Fairbairn@cl.cam.ac.uk