[Haskell-cafe] Re: GADTs vs arrows/typeclasses

[Arie Peterson]

Hi Alex,


S. Alexander Jacobson wrote:

> I guess I'm also not sure what belongs in a GADT and what belongs in a
> typeclass e.g. here is an Arrow GADT
>
>    data Arrow b c where
>      Arr::(b->c) -> Arrow b c
>      Compose::Arrow b c -> Arrow c d -> Arrow b d
>      First::Arrow a b -> Arrow (a,c) (b,c)
>
> When Arrow is defined like this, rather than write instances you just
> various evaluation functions for the Arrow GADT.

Indeed, there is a free choice (no pun) between this datatype and a class
instance.

The way I think about it, the datatype 'Arrow' above is the
universal/free/(most general) instance of the class 'Arrow'. As you
mention, specific instances of the class correspond to evaluation
functions on this datatype.

(In fact, this datatype presumably is the colimit of all instances of the
'Arrow' class, suitably interpreted as a functor.)

In practice, you usually just want an instance; the universal datatype is
only an extra layer of indirection. Sometimes however this datatype keeps
useful extra information. I have used this approach once to allow
algebraic manipulation of some kind of arrows: the GADT constructors make
it possible to do pattern matching on the structure of the arrow. This is
impossible if your arrow is some opaque function.


Regards,

Arie