[Haskell-beginners] Re: computation vs function

[Ertugrul Soeylemez]

Daniel Carrera <daniel.carrera at theingots.org> wrote:

> I have finished the tutorial at http://ertes.de/articles/monads.html
> and my understanding of monads has increased greatly. I still need to
> cement some concepts in my mind. What exactly is the difference
> between a computation and a function? Monads revolve around
> computations, so I'd like to understand computations better.

What I refer to as a 'computation' in the article is actually just a
value of type 'Monad m => m a'.  I have chosen that term, because you
can apply it to any monad I've seen.  As mentioned in section 5, you can
think of 'Just 3' as being a computation, which results in 3.  But it's
important that this is not a function, but just an independent value.

You can think of a function of type 'a -> b' as a parametric value -- a
value of type 'b' depending on some value of type 'a'.  That makes a
function of type 'Monad m => a -> m b' a parametric computation.  A
computation, where something is missing, like with an open slot, where
you need to plug a cable in first.

By the way, this is where (>>=) comes into play.  If you have a
computation, which needs a value, but that value comes as the result of
another computation, you can use the binding operator.

  f :: Monad m => a -> m b

The 'f' function is a parametric computation of type 'm b', which
depends on a value of type 'a'.  Now if

  c :: Monad m => m a

and 'm' and 'a' in 'f' are the same as 'm' and 'a' in 'c', then

  c >>= f

takes 'c', puts its result (of type 'a') into 'f', resulting in a
computation of type 'm b'.

Example:  You have a computation 'myComp', which outputs a string to
stdout prefixed with "+++ ":

  myComp :: String -> IO ()
  myComp str = putStrLn ("+++ " ++ str)

If that string is available directly, just pass it to 'myComp', which
results in a computation.  If that string is not available directly, but
comes as the result of another computation 'getLine', you use (>>=):

  getLine >>= myComp


Greets,
Ertugrul.


-- 
nightmare = unsafePerformIO (getWrongWife >>= sex)
http://blog.ertes.de/