Yet Another Monad Tutorial

Bayley, Alistair Alistair_Bayley@ldn.invesco.com
Tue, 12 Aug 2003 16:17:11 +0100


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Newbern [mailto:jnewbern@nomaware.com]
> 
> Alistair,
> 
> Hhhmmm.  That is an interesting issue, and I am unsure how to treat it
> in the tutorial.  I did attempt to explain the ability of the monad to
> isolate impure computations, but I think I need to make a better
> explanation of what an action is and how it is used.
> 
> As for the question of whether using a monad in this way casts Haskell
> out of the ranks of the functionally pure, I don't know.  
> This feels to
> me like a debate over personal interpretation, with decent 
> arguments on
> both sides.  I think the most accurate thing to say is that it enables
> Haskell to incorporate non-pure features without destroying the purity
> of the core of the language.


The interesting point for me is: you can't escape from the IO monad, but you
can from others. You can use non-IO functions from IO functions, but you
can't use IO functions from non-IO functions. AFAICT, this is not true of
all monads; as Wolfgang said, you can write a function that uses monadic
values but returns a non-monadic ("pure") value.

You (sort of) explain this in the first two paragraphs of "No way out", but
things that might help are:
 - two example lists: of one-way monads (IO), and others (List, Maybe)
 - non-monadic function using monadic values (
http://www.nomaware.com/monads/html/listmonad.html#example )


> Any suggestions for how best to present this issue to a reader who may
> be new to the world of FP?  Should we mention it at all?

I think you should mention it in a monad tutorial, hence the request. It
will help (has helped) me understand a little more about monads.


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