<div dir="auto">The sad part is seemingly it discards having an informative stack trace? </div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 10:16 AM Simon Peyton Jones via Libraries <<a href="mailto:libraries@haskell.org">libraries@haskell.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">| If we indeed had something like<br>
| <br>
| head :: Partial => [a] -> a<br>
| <br>
| that would be both informative and fairly straightforward to explain to<br>
| students, for example. (Even if it is not clear to me that a type class<br>
| really is the right way to express partiality of functions: I always thought<br>
| information about partiality ought to be tied to the function arrow.)<br>
<br>
OK -- that sounds promising. It's what Richard suggested earlier, and sounds pretty good to me.<br>
<br>
Simon<br>
<br>
<br>
| -----Original Message-----<br>
| From: <a href="mailto:Henrik.Nilsson@nottingham.ac.uk" target="_blank">Henrik.Nilsson@nottingham.ac.uk</a> <<a href="mailto:Henrik.Nilsson@nottingham.ac.uk" target="_blank">Henrik.Nilsson@nottingham.ac.uk</a>><br>
| Sent: 09 June 2021 14:45<br>
| To: Simon Peyton Jones <<a href="mailto:simonpj@microsoft.com" target="_blank">simonpj@microsoft.com</a>>; Henrik Nilsson<br>
| <<a href="mailto:Henrik.Nilsson@nottingham.ac.uk" target="_blank">Henrik.Nilsson@nottingham.ac.uk</a>>; <a href="mailto:libraries@haskell.org" target="_blank">libraries@haskell.org</a><br>
| Subject: Re: RFC: Add HasCallStack constraint to partial Data.List<br>
| functions.<br>
| <br>
| > I'm not sure I really agree with that. There is a rich literature on ><br>
| effect systems, which decorate types with information about what > effects<br>
| the function has: exceptions, divergence, IO, and the like.<br>
| > So type like<br>
| > head :: Partial => [a] -> a<br>
| > where 'Partial =>' expresses the fact that calling this function > might<br>
| lead to a call of 'error' doesn't seem inherently something > that doesn't<br>
| belong in a type system.<br>
| <br>
| I, of course, agree that partiality is an effect. And I have no issues with<br>
| effects being reflected in the type system.<br>
| We do that all the time with e.g. monads.<br>
| <br>
| If we indeed had something like<br>
| <br>
| head :: Partial => [a] -> a<br>
| <br>
| that would be both informative and fairly straightforward to explain to<br>
| students, for example. (Even if it is not clear to me that a type class<br>
| really is the right way to express partiality of functions: I always thought<br>
| information about partiality ought to be tied to the function arrow.)<br>
| <br>
| My point is that "HasCallStack" strongly suggest a specific approach to<br>
| monitor the behaviour of a function in case it goes wrong.<br>
| <br>
| To me, at least, that is very operational.<br>
| <br>
| And I would struggle to explain<br>
| <br>
| head :: HasCallStack => [a] -> a<br>
| <br>
| beyond saying "it's just something that sometimes will help you with<br>
| debugging", and deeply hoping no clever student would ask about the lack of<br>
| similar annotations for other partial functions.<br>
| <br>
| Best,<br>
| <br>
| /Henrik<br>
| <br>
| <br>
| <br>
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<br>
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</blockquote></div></div>