Am Dienstag, 11. Januar 2005 18:45 schrieben Sie: > On 11 Jan 2005, at 16:47, Daniel Fischer wrote: > > Am Dienstag, 11. Januar 2005 16:45 schrieb Henning Thielemann: > >> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, Jules Bean wrote: > >>> Hint: Don't put signatures on functions, then. Instead, let the > >>> compiler infer the type for you! If you want to know what the type > >>> is, > >>> ask GHCi with :info. And if you think it is helpful documentation, > >>> you > >>> can copy-paste the correct signature from ghci into your source code! > >> > >> There should always be signatures. > > > > I do almost unrestrictedly agree! > > > > Deciphering code without type signatures is -- except in fairly > > trivial cases > > -- always a nuisance, and if the author chose short names instead of > > telling > > ones, it is positively disgusting! > > That's not really what I meant. > > I meant that, especially when you are figuring out a new language, > getting the types inferred for you is helpful and also instructive... I > wasn't suggesting that they be left out permanently. > > Jules
Sorry about the misunderstanding. Yes, getting the types inferred for you is helpful and instructive, however, as Stefan Holdermans wrote, giving a signature upfront has definite merits, so probably the thing to do is - write a signature first - then comment it out and see what the System infers (and of course try to understand that). Concerning Keith Wansbrough and David Roundy's remarks about wrong comments, I am miserably aware of their correctness, but I still retain the hope that what a comment says about the overall intention of a function is more often helpful than misleading (am I naive?) even if the details lag behind by several updates. Best wishes, Daniel _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list [email protected] http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
