On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 9:29 AM, Simon Peyton-Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Friends > > GHC has embodied data type families since 6.8, and now type synonym families > (aka type functions) in 6.10. However, apart from our initial papers there > isn't much published material about how to *use* type families. But that > hasn't stopped you: quite a few people are using them already, and of course > there is a rich seam of work on using functional dependencies to express > type-level computation. > > Ken Shan and Oleg Kiselyov and I are collaborating to write a paper for an > upcoming workshop, under the general rubric of "Fun with type functions" (in > homage to Thomas Hallgren's paper "Fun with functional dependencies" and Ralf > Hinze's paper "Fun with phantom types"). > > So this message is to ask you: > > can you tell us about the most persuasive, fun application > you've encountered, for type families or functional dependencies? > > Simple is good. It doesn't have to be elaborate: just something that does > something useful you could not have done otherwise. Pointers to email > threads are fine. Don't assume we already know about them (even if we > participated in the thread :-) Part of what we're interested in is that > *you* found the example compelling. > > Many thanks
I documented, [1] and [2], my first encounter with functional dependencies. Maybe not a persuasive example, but I felt it was a fairly good introduction to them. /M [1]: http://therning.org/magnus/archives/354 [2]: http://therning.org/magnus/archives/355 -- Magnus Therning (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4) magnus＠therning．org Jabber: magnus＠therning．org http://therning.org/magnus identi.ca|twitter: magthe
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list [email protected] http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
