representation getting verbose...

Thanks for your reply...

Paul Hudak <paul.hudak@yale.edu> writes:

> > case expr of
> >   C f -> ...
> >   V (Variable (VVariable s)) -> ...
> >   ...
> 
> I think you mean:
> 
>   case expr of
>     C f -> ...
>     V (VVariable s) -> ...
> 
> which is not quite as verbose.

Yes, I think I should have checked my examples more carefully.

> I don't think that the problem is as bad as you make it out to be.  If
> you adopt my use of short constructor names, then something like:

> (snip)

Well, my example wasn't very good, and is quite a bit simpler than the
actual application I'm developing.  I think I will take your advice on
shorter names, however.

To give you an idea of the kind of code I'm ending up with, here's a
construction from my program:

Variable (VVariable(varName, (Value (Number
                                     (NNumber (varValue, varDimension))))))

Here VVariable and NNumber are newtype constructors of tuples, and the
entire expression is an "Expression" which, among other things has:

data Expression = 
  Value Value
| Variable Variable
| ...

and Value has "data Value = Number Number | ..."

Now the newtype constructors seem a bit unnecessary, perhaps, but I
guess they increase the type-checking.  So I still feel that the above
construtor is overly verbose.

> On the other hand, there are much deeper issues at play here
> regarding the representation of a language with variables as a data
> type.

The reference you gave on "higher-order abstract syntax" may be quite
useful.  I have also been looking over your paper on using Haskell as
an Embedded DSL, which is extremely appealing for my application.  I'm
attempting to synthesize all of this into a coherent game plan...

> What I did in my book was very simple, and the use of variables was
> only given as an exercise (by the way, you left out the "Let"
> constructor, which presuambly has the form "Let String Expr").

Yes indeed.  I guess I should have tried compiling my example.  I have
the urge to post my solution to that exercise just so you know I did
it right :-)  I'm about to post an SOE question separately.



peace,

Isaac