From: Henning Thielemann
Isaac Dupree schrieb:
On the other hand, maybe it's also an argument to change all the functions like forkIO from :: IO () -> IO ThreadID to :: IO a -> IO ThreadID
I mean, surely they don't rely on the value of a () return-type, other than to pass on to other places that artificially require the ()-type?
No, I think it is already bad enough, that (>>) has type (m a -> m b -> m b) instead of (m () -> m b -> m b). It is like automatically ignoring return values in C. It is too easy to ignore a result that is important.
I agree with Henning on forkIO and the like, but I think the current type of (>>) is right. The name of the function is "anonymous bind" (at least that's what I learned), and its whole purpose of existence is to ignore the value of the first computation while maintaining the context. It would be nice if there were greater differentiation between (>>) and (>>=), though. Ideally, (>>) would be changed to something longer than (>>=) to prevent accidental mis-typing (i.e. on the keyboard). Not that I expect much support for this proposal! John