[Hs-Generics] Re: Scrap your boilerplate and Variants

[Ralf Lammel]

> At the ICFP05 talk, Simon
> Peyton-Jones asserted that recursive instances are essential. I have
> publicly expressed doubts. Simon Peyton-Jones said: if you think
> otherwise, show me the code. And so I did.

... and I keep replying that you are exploiting the folklore trick of eliminating function-typed arguments by means of an extra type-code that must be interpreted by a sort of apply type class. I cannot speak for SPJ, but I would say for myself that this extra step of deferred interpretation is not like a "fix" for our approach; it greatly *modifies* our approach and takes the important idea of function combinators largely out of it. Your "flavor" may actually still be quite desirable, but that's another question :-)

Ralf