[Haskell-cafe] Why is this strict in its arguments?

[Stefan O'Rear]

On Tue, Dec 04, 2007 at 03:07:01PM -0800, Ryan Ingram wrote:
> Is there a reason why strictness is defined as
> > f _|_ = _|_
> 
> instead of, for example,
> > forall x :: Exception. f (throw x) = throw x
> where an exception thrown from pure code is observable in IO.
> 
> In the second case we need to prove that the argument is evaluated at some
> point, which is also equivalent to the halting problem but more captures the
> notion of "f evaluates its argument" rather than "either f evaluates its
> argument, or f _ is _|_"
> 
> I suppose the first case allows us to do more eager evaluation; but are
> there a lot of cases where that matters?

"Is there a reason why 2 + 2 is defined as 4 instead of, for example,
5?"

Strictness is more useful in practice, simpler to define, and easier to
approximate.

What benefit does your notion offer?

Stefan
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