Marshalling functions was: Transmitting Haskell values

[Hal Daume III]

No, it's possible -- it's done under the hood in GPH (parallel Haskell); 
it just doesn't exist in normal GHC...

On Tue, 28 Oct 2003, Dimitry Golubovsky wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Hal Daume III wrote:
> >>Hmm... I can write out functions using the "Show (a -> b)" instance, but
> >>there's no matching "Read (a -> b)".
> > 
> > 
> > Show (a -> b) is a bogus instances -- you won't actually be able to use it 
> > for marshalling functions.
> 
> Well, marshalling functions (or storing-restoring some internal forms of 
> them) might be especially nice... This would mean I can declare and 
> compile a function on my side of a network connection (for example), and 
> then send it to the other end for evaluation, and then get the result. 
> Like a database request. Is this something absolutely impossible in 
> Haskell and by what reason? Just because of strong typing (forgive my 
> stupidity ;)? Or are there some deeper theoretical limitations?
> 
> 

-- 
 Hal Daume III                                   | hdaume at isi.edu
 "Arrest this man, he talks in maths."           | www.isi.edu/~hdaume