[Haskell-cafe] Re: Versioning

Jacques Carette carette at mcmaster.ca
Thu Dec 21 12:32:58 EST 2006


Neil Mitchell wrote:
>> In other words, you can program in Haskell just fine without
>> extensions.  But if you want that "next level" in type safety,
>> extensions is where it's at, at least for the kind of code I write.
>
> What level of "safety" do these type extensions give you? 
Check out many, many, many of Oleg's postings to the Haskell list.  His 
code expresses this much better than my words can.

> The biggest
> runtime crasher is probably pattern match failings, something that
> most of these type extensions don't catch at all!
Array out-of-bounds, fromJust, head on an empty list, and pattern-match 
failures are in my list of things I wish the type system could help me 
with.  And sometimes it can [again, see Oleg's posts].  But is 
definitely where I am *eager* to see developments.

> They do give you some safety, but not a massive amount, and not in the
> places where it would be truely useful.
Unfortunately, I agree.  But I'll still take what I can get!

Jacques


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