Show, Eq not necessary for Num [Was: Revamping the numeric classes]

[Fergus Henderson]

On 09-Feb-2001, Brian Boutel <brian@boutel.co.nz> wrote:
> Patrik Jansson wrote:
> >
> > The fact that equality can be trivially defined as bottom does not imply
> > that it should be a superclass of Num, it only explains that there is an
> > ugly way of working around the problem.
...
> 
> There is nothing trivial or ugly about a definition that reflects
> reality and bottoms only where equality is undefined.

I disagree.  Haskell is a statically typed language, and having errors
which could easily be detected at compile instead being deferred to
run time is ugly in a statically typed language.

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
                                    |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.