On Tue, 4 Sep 2007, David Benbennick wrote:
On 9/4/07, ok <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I've been thinking about making a data type an instance of MonadPlus.
From the Haddock documentation at haskell.org, I see that any such
instance should satisfy
mzero `mplus` x = x
x `mplus` mzero = x
mzero >>= f = mzero
v >> mzero = mzero
but is that all there is to it? Are there no other requirements for
MonadPlus to make sense?
Also, mplus has to be associative. I.e.
(a `mplus` b) `mplus` c == a `mplus` (b `mplus` c)
I also wondered why, once MonadPlus was added to the language, the
definition of ++ wasn't changed to
(++) = MonadPlus
(with the MonadPlus instance for [] defined directly).
You mean (++) = mplus. I've wondered that too. Similarly, one should
define map = fmap.
I think it is very sensible to define the generalized function in terms of
the specific one, not vice versa.
And a lot of standard list functions can be
generalized to MonadPlus, for example you can define
filter :: (MonadPlus m) => (a -> Bool) -> m a -> m a
Always using the most generalized form is not a good idea. If you know you
are working on lists, 'map' and 'filter' tell the reader, that they are
working on lists. The reader of a program doesn't need to start human type
inference to deduce this. Also the type inference of the compiler will
fail, if you write too general. Say, you are in GHCi, have your definition
of 'filter' and you write
Prelude> filter Char.isUpper (return 'a')
To what monad this shall be specialised? Rely on type defaulting? Ok, you
can use type signatures.
See also:
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Slim_instance_declaration
_______________________________________________
Haskell-Cafe mailing list
Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org
http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
