[Haskell-beginners] several questions: multi-param typeclasses, etc.

[Brent Yorgey]

On Sun, Nov 01, 2009 at 08:32:34AM -0800, Michael Mossey wrote:
>
>
> Brent Yorgey wrote:
>> The m -> e thing isn't a constraint that needs to be satisfied; it
>> gives some extra information to help the compiler with inferring which
>> instance to use.  In particular, "m -> e" says "the type chosen for m
>> DETERMINES the type chosen for e"; put another way, "there cannot be
>> two instances with the same type for m but different types for e".  So
>> in this case you could not also make an instance
>>
>>   MonadError String (Either e).
>>
>
> Thanks, Brent.  Now what I'm a bit confused about:
> if you wrote
>
> instance (Error e) => MonadError e (Either e)
>
> and no other instance with Either e, then the compiler would have only one 
> choice. So why would it need the extra information in the functional 
> dependency?

Because type classes are open: when compiling a module, the compiler
is never allowed to assume that the instances it sees are the only
instances, because there could always be another instance declared in
a module it hasn't seen yet.

>
> On the other hand, if you added
>
> instance (Error e) => MonadError String (Either e)
>
> and didn't include the functional dependency, the compiler would still run 
> into a problem with overlapping instances and have no way to decide, which 
> I presume is still an error.

True.  In the case of this particular *instance*, the functional
dependency doesn't really add all that much.  But that doesn't mean
the functional dependency on the *class* is useless; there can be
other instances of the class as well.

-Brent