Am Montag, 4. Mai 2009 13:33:33 schrieb David Duke:
Decoupling basic primitives for geometric modelling from OpenGL would be useful. [...] Even just data constructors and instances of these within Functor and Applicative are a useful starting point. [...]
I've taken a closer look at the available packages for vector math/linear algebra. They differ in a lot of respects, starting from their representations of vectors and matrices, use of the type system and its extensions, strictness, structure of their type classes, etc. This leads me to the conclusion that I should only lift the data types for vectors and matrices out of the OpenGL package, including only instances for standard type classes like Eq, Ord, Functor, etc. This means that the new package will *not* include type classes for things like scalars, vector spaces, etc. These can be defined by the other packages in their own "type class language". I really fail to see a common ground in this respect, even for basic things: Keeping things H98-compliant is a must for me, so putting things like fundeps or associated types in this new package is a no-go for me. Nevertheless, having a common set of (strict) data types for vector math will probably be very useful, even if it won't fulfill everybody's needs. What standard instances should be defined for those vectors and matrices? Things coming to mind are Eq, Ord, Show, Storable, Typeable1, Functor and Applicative. Have I missed some type classes? Regarding Functor/Applicative: The obvious instances for e.g. a 2-dimensional vertex are: data Vertex2 a = Vertex2 a a instance Functor Vertex2 where fmap f (Vertex2 x y) = Vertex2 (f x) (f y) instance Applicative Vertex2 where pure a = Vertex2 a a Vertex2 f g <*> Vertex2 x y = Vertex2 (f x) (g y) They fulfill all required laws, but are these the only possible instances? If not, are they at least the most "canonical" ones in a given sense? And finally: Does somebody have a real-world example where the Applicative instance is useful? Usages of the Functor instance are much more obvious for me. Cheers, S.