[Haskell] monads, records, verbosity

[S. Alexander Jacobson]

Much of the discussion here recently has been related to debate about 
complexifying the monad hierarchy.  The fact that Haskell record 
syntax is abysmal and the verbosity of various possible solutions.
They appear to interrelate.

Would it be possible/reasonable to get rid of data, class, and 
instance declarations and rely on type inference for everything?

Here is my strawman version:

* functions definitions imply the data declarations required

   foo True = Just "abc"
   foo False = Nothing

   ==implies==>

   data A1 = True | False
   data A2 a = Just a | Nothing

* all function definitions are actually instance declarations of an 
implicit class that implements that function so e.g.

   foo True = Just "abc"
   foo False = Nothing

   ==implies==>

   class Foo a b where foo::a->b
   instance Foo A1 A2 where
      foo True = Just "abc"
      foo False = Nothing

* multiple definitions of the same function imply distinct instance 
declarations:

   foo 0 = Nothing
   foo x = Just (x+1)

   ==implies ==>

   class Foo a b where foo::a->b -- same as above definition of Foo
   instance Foo A1 (A2 A1) where .....

* field labels happen in context

   mkPot = Pot {profit=0,amounts=[]}
   updatePot p = p {profit \= (1+),amount \= (1:)}
   getProfit p = profit p

   == implies ==>

   data A3 = Pot Int [Int]
   class Profit a where profit::a->Int
   class Amounts a where amounts::a->[Int]
   instance Profit A3 where profit (Pot a _)=a
   instance Amounts A3 where amounts (Pot _ a)=a
   class UpdatePot a where updatePot::a->a
   instance UpdatePot A3 where updatePot (Pot a b) = Pot (1+a) (1:b)
   getProfit p = profit p

* default instances are as follows

   foo a b c = b -- the default instance
   foo (a::Pot) b c = c -- the specialized instance

Is this possible/reasonable?

-Alex-


______________________________________________________________
S. Alexander Jacobson tel:917-770-6565 http://alexjacobson.com