On Tuesday, 2003-08-12, 18:20, CEST, Jeff Newbern wrote:
> [...]
> In the section "No Way Out":
> ----------
> The IO monad is a familiar example of a one-way monad in Haskell. Because
> you can't escape from the IO monad, it is impossible to write a function
> that does a computation in the IO monad but returns a non-monadic value. Not
> only are functions of the type IO a -> a impossible to create, but any
> function whose result type does not contain the IO type constructor is
> guaranteed not to use the IO monad. Other monads, such as List and Maybe, do
> allow values out of the monad. So it is possible to write non-monadic
> functions that internally do computations in those monads. The one-way
> nature of the IO monad also has consequences when combining monads, a topic
> that is discussed in part III.
This sounds rather vague to me. I don't like the formulation of a function
doing a computation in the IO monad because execution of I/O actions is done
separated from function application and evaluation (although interleaved with
it because of lazy evaluation etc.). Tell me, if I'm pedantic.
By the way, it *is* possible to create a function of type IO a -> a:
f :: IO a -> a
f = const undefined
That's why in my last mail I spoke about *useful* functions which are
implementable for State (but not for IO).
> [...]
> The functions exported from the IO module do not perform I/O themselves.
This is what I wanted to say above.
> They return I/O actions, which describe an I/O operation to be performed.
> The I/O actions are combined within the IO monad (in a purely functional
> manner) to create more complex I/O actions, resulting in the final I/O
> action that is the main value of the program.
Very good!
> The result of the Haskell compiler is an executable function incorporating
> the main I/O action. Executing the program "applies" this ultimate I/O
> action to the outside world to produce a new state of the world.
I wouldn't talk about functions and function applications here because what
you mean are not Haskell functions and applications of them. You can think of
an I/O action being a function conceptually and the execution of it being a
function application but using these terms here will most likely confuse
readers.
> [...]
Wolfgang
_______________________________________________
Haskell-Cafe mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
