[Haskell-cafe] Why Exotic Languages Are Not Mainstream

[Nicolas Frisby]

Thanks for the pointers, but I think I'm looking for type information
specific to my program. The VisualHaskell feature of which I am
envious is the ability to tell me the type of any identifier in my
program.

Disclaimer: I've never used VisualHaskell and am going only by what I
read on its features page.

> sqrs l = map fn l
>   where fn x = x+2

Presumably, VisualHaskell would let me mouse-over/select the x in x+2
and tell me that it's of type 'Num a => a'; where I could
mouse-over/select srqs and it would tell me that it's of type 'Num a
=> [a] -> [a]' (not necessarily the same a!). Of course this isn't too
helpful with this example, but start imagining method definitions for
>>= or the like on hairier data structures.

I don't know how VisualHaskell handles type-errors, but I think it'd
be neat if it gave me as much info as possible when errors were in the
picture--that's exactly when I need the info the most!

And, of course, I'd like this functionality in a multi-platform editor.

Nick

On 8/11/06, Neil Mitchell <ndmitchell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
> > I also use http://haskell.org/hoogle quite a bit and I keep meaning to
> > install the lambda bot locally on my machine so that I can ask it.
>
> If you download and compile hoogle from the darcs repo, there is a
> console version included. Of course, lambdabot gives you lots more
> than just hoogle, so might still be the one for you.
>
> Thanks
>
> Neil
>