On 07-Feb-2001, Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk <qrczak@knm.org.pl> wrote:
So why is fmap separate now? Probably because having too much overloading causes ambiguities.
Perhaps. But I think there may be other reasons too. Having fmap separate is useful for beginners and for teaching, because you can describe `map' without having to talk about type classes. Also, it is possible that the error messages that you get when you make a mistake using `fmap' might be harder to understand. The reasoning here is similar to the reasons that Haskell 98 has list comprehensions rather than monad comprehensions. -- Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au> | "I have always known that the pursuit | of excellence is a lethal habit" WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh> | -- the last words of T. S. Garp.