[Haskell-beginners] Global variable question

[Edward Z. Yang]

Excerpts from Joe Van Dyk's message of Wed Dec 30 20:49:12 -0500 2009:
> What's the appropriate way to write this in Haskell?

Hi Joe,

The Ticker class is an example of stateful computation, which we try
to avoid in Haskell.  What are you really trying to do?

* If you a number, and you want to add to it, (+1) works
  plenty well.

* If you are going to be making ticks, but you don't care about
  reading the ticks until the end of the computation, the Writer monad
  is of interest.

* If you need to update the tick count and read it, the State
  monad is a good bet.

* If you're interested in curiosities from imperative land, STRef, IORef and
  other similar creatures may be helpful.

Cheers,
Edward