Re: [Haskell-cafe] Disadvantages of de Bruijn indicies?

2007-05-14 Thread Claus Reinke
Anyway, Conor and James' Haskell Workshop paper on manipulating syntax that involves both free and bound variables [1] is really nice and could perhaps be of interest to you. If I remember correctly this paper is not about a pure de Bruijn index representation, but about a mix between names and

Re: [Haskell-cafe] Disadvantages of de Bruijn indicies?

2007-05-14 Thread Stefan Holdermans
Nils, Anyway, Conor and James' Haskell Workshop paper on manipulating syntax that involves both free and bound variables [1] is really nice and could perhaps be of interest to you. If I remember correctly this paper is not about a pure de Bruijn index representation, but about a mix between na

Re: [Haskell-cafe] Disadvantages of de Bruijn indicies?

2007-05-14 Thread Nils Anders Danielsson
On Sun, 13 May 2007, Stefan Holdermans <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Anyway, Conor and James' Haskell Workshop paper on manipulating > syntax that involves both free and bound variables [1] is really nice > and could perhaps be of interest to you. If I remember correctly this paper is not about a

Re: [Haskell-cafe] Disadvantages of de Bruijn indicies?

2007-05-13 Thread Pepe Iborra
On 13/05/2007, at 12:44, Neil Mitchell wrote: Hi Thanks for all the responses, I'm busy reading through them. I'm still trying to decide whether I should use them or not. They complicate things, are less intuitive than names. But on the other hand, the language I'm working in is untyped and h

Re: [Haskell-cafe] Disadvantages of de Bruijn indicies?

2007-05-13 Thread Neil Mitchell
Hi Thanks for all the responses, I'm busy reading through them. I'm still trying to decide whether I should use them or not. They complicate things, are less intuitive than names. But on the other hand, the language I'm working in is untyped and has only letrec. These things make binding errors

Re: [Haskell-cafe] Disadvantages of de Bruijn indicies?

2007-05-12 Thread Stefan Holdermans
Neil, de Bruijn indicies look quite nice, and seem to eliminate a lot of complexity when dealing with free variables: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_index So I was wondering, are they suitable for use in a compiler? If so, what are their disadvantages/advantages? Is there any particular

Re: [Haskell-cafe] Disadvantages of de Bruijn indicies?

2007-05-11 Thread Twan van Laarhoven
Neil Mitchell wrote: Hi, de Bruijn indicies look quite nice, and seem to eliminate a lot of complexity when dealing with free variables: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_index So I was wondering, are they suitable for use in a compiler? If so, what are their disadvantages/advantages? Is

Re: [Haskell-cafe] Disadvantages of de Bruijn indicies?

2007-05-11 Thread Claus Reinke
de Bruijn indicies look quite nice, and seem to eliminate a lot of complexity when dealing with free variables: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_index the complexity is not really eliminated, but made precise and mechanised, which is helpful for tools, less helpful for humans. From what

Re: [Haskell-cafe] Disadvantages of de Bruijn indicies?

2007-05-11 Thread Stefan O'Rear
On Fri, May 11, 2007 at 03:10:42PM +0100, Neil Mitchell wrote: > Hi, > > de Bruijn indicies look quite nice, and seem to eliminate a lot of > complexity when dealing with free variables: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_index > > So I was wondering, are they suitable for use in a compiler

[Haskell-cafe] Disadvantages of de Bruijn indicies?

2007-05-11 Thread Neil Mitchell
Hi, de Bruijn indicies look quite nice, and seem to eliminate a lot of complexity when dealing with free variables: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_index So I was wondering, are they suitable for use in a compiler? If so, what are their disadvantages/advantages? Is there any particular re