Andres Loeh wrote:
I cannot see how an empty list of tyvars is useful or desirable in practice: data Foo = Foo (forall . Int) is equivalent to just data Foo = Foo Int so why bother to permit the former? It probably indicates some error in the thinking of the programmer, so the compiler should bring it to her attention.
The only reasons that I could see in favor of allowing empty "forall"s is that it might be easier to automatically generate code. Haskell seems to be a bit inconsistent in how it treats empty constructs. For example, empty let and empty where seems to be allowed, but not an empty case?
Just a little remark on the side: 'If' and 'case' demand exactly one expression. In such cases allowing zero expressions is not a generalization but an unnecessary complication. 'Let' and 'where' allow any number of bindings, so allowing zero bindings (instead of demanding at least one) is a simplification. Upshot: everywhere the syntax allows a 'list' of things, one should consider allowing the empty list, too. Cheers Ben