Re: 2533: Generic functions that take integral arguments should work the same way as their prelude counterparts

On Sat, 23 Aug 2008, Gwern Branwen wrote:

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A similar argument could be made against ``take 5 [] = []''.

sure

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A different solution would be using Nat or Natural as arguments here --- then the conversion introduces an obvious place to check for errors.

Wolfram

I've actually long wondered about this: why don't more functions use Nat where it'd make sense? It can't be because Nat is hard to define - I'd swear I've seen many definitions of Nat (if not dozens when you count all the type-level exercises which include one).

http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/non-negative