I think I'm reluctant to accept Dessy as "the" collection framework mainly because you're trying to sell a big package of many changes at the same time - maybe that's also the reason why no one(?) else publicly said "I want Dessy". Dessy seems to include several new ideas, and I don't want to get them all in one package. At a first glance, Dessy seems to include (forgive me if I forgot something important): 1) a hierarchy of Collection classes, based on MPTC without FunDeps 2) Implementations to go along with it 3) Lots of "propaganda" against lists and a proposal to change the language to remove it's bias towards lists 4) A "Stream" type whose only purpose seems to be to avoid using list syntax when the semantics of singly-linked lists are required 5) Some obvious naming changes like head --> first 6) A blasphemous tendency to use underscores in names :-) People aren't quite done arguing whether the collection classes should rather use fundeps, or whether we should have a single-parameter Sequence class, etc. I guess no one has yet even taken a serious look at your implementations - but if there was anything wrong with the implementations, that could be fixed later. Number 3 is bound to spark some long discussions; and as it's a major (and incompatible) change to the language rather than the libraries, it's not going to happen anytime soon. We need a useful sequence framework that is used by many people first, only then will you be able to convince people that [1,2,3] should denote "a sequence" rather than "a list". Number 4 doesn't make much sense without Number 3. Number 5 definitely makes sense (although I haven't had a look at all of your names yet). It will be painful, though, and there will definitely be many people who just write modules with declarations like "head xs = first xs". Number 6: Veto. (OK, I don't have the right to veto anything, but you know what I mean).
I'm ready to fight it, even ready to loose it, but since underscores are just the better thing (by psychological studies), I'll try to push the change.
Aha, proof by appeal to authority ;-). What psychological studies? Who did they use as test subjects? UNIX C programmers? Windows C programmers? Java programmers? People who have never programmed before? For me, code without underscores is definitely more readable, so it might just depend on what you are accustomed to. Also, when you try to push that change, think about how big a change you are advocating; it's not about but_first versus butFirst only. If the new collection framework is the only place where underscores are used in names, then that's bad, because inconsistency is definitely a bad thing. We'd have to change the other libraries to match (will all the other library maintainers agree to do this?). And I'd have to change my code to match. After I've changed my library calls, my own function names would look out-of-place. Ugh. I think you simply can't "change" the naming style used in Haskell. You can only either "submit" to the predominant style that has brought us relative "harmony" (compared to C), or you can defend the right to use your own style in addition to the predominant style. I like the fact that almost all Haskell code I come accross uses the same naming style, but maybe that's just because it happens to agree with my own preference.
... why shouldn't the running time of operations on other sequences be defined relative to lists?
If every programmer has to learn that 'last' takes time O(N) before he learns that better implementations exist, this will certainly be no good.
I'd agree soon as point 3) above is "accepted" and the "list bias" in the language is removed. As long as we have a language where lists are the standard sequence type that appears everywhere, we can safely assume that every programmer *will* learn how to use lists before he learns about other collection types.
Absurdness? Ridiculous? Your language is very strong.
Yes. If I wouldn't think the advantages of a democratic approach are very big, I couldn't defend such a big change.
Mhm. We seem to have a small clash of cultures here. Down here in old-fashioned Austria, calling somebody's opinion both absurd and ridiculous in the same sentence is sometimes considered equivalent to a personal insult. The mere fact that sensible people have written programs that use lots of singly-linked lists proves that it's neither absurd nor ridiculous. The "democratic" approach might be a lot better, but that doesn't make the old approach ridiculous or absurd. Sorry for complaining about this, I know I shouldn't be that narrow-minded... Cheers, Wolfgang