[Timber] Welcome to the timber list

[Johan Nordlander]

> Guys!
>
> Welcome to the Timber list. lots to do.
>
> One thing I'd like to visit is String = [Char]. Is this the right  
> thing for Timber?
>
> We have data [a] = ... , how about data Vector a = ...
> where Vector is an 0 index'd array, and, String = Vector Char?
>
> Is this too much of a departure from Haskell?
>
> What parts of Haskell type classes might we want to keep? Can we  
> simplify the
> hierarchy?
>
> Both of these questions relate to how much of Haskell we carry  
> forward,
> and how much we change.


I'm also in favor of shifting to some more "traditional", or at least  
more memory-efficient representation of strings.  But the main  
question as I see it is what kind of programming pattern an array- 
based representation would support.  We can't simply reuse list  
recursion, and we don' want to force all string computations up to  
the imperative level.

Would it be possible to play with overloading here?  Or to generalize  
the list comprehensions?

I don't care too much whether we depart from Haskell or not, since  
Haskell's string handling probably isn't its strongest point.  But I  
don't know of any better alternative that is both convenient and  
purely functional.

Regarding type classes we should not feel any constraints at all.   
Simplification sounds like a good thing!

-- Johan