[Haskell-cafe] A very nontrivial parser

[Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH]

On Jul 8, 2007, at 8:12 , Andrew Coppin wrote:

> Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH wrote:
>>
>> On Jul 8, 2007, at 3:21 , Andrew Coppin wrote:
>>
>>> this.) So as of now, my code uses rank-2 types - despite the fact  
>>> that I don't actually know what a rank-2 type *is* yet! o_O This  
>>> is rather troubling...
>>
>> Bah --- I use monads all the time and still don't have much of a  
>> clue about category theory.  :)
>> (For that matter, I can drive a car without understanding what's  
>> going on under the hood.)
>>
>
> Aye, you drive a car without knowing how it works - but it was put  
> together by some people who *do* know these things. Would you drive  
> a car you built yourself? ;-)

No :) --- but depending on what you're doing, you can use rank-2  
types without knowing what's under the hood.  In fact, I'd say the  
fact that you're using them is evidence of that.

(Aside --- looking at your problem description, I wonder if GADTs  
would be a better fit.)

-- 
brandon s. allbery [solaris,freebsd,perl,pugs,haskell] allbery at kf8nh.com
system administrator [openafs,heimdal,too many hats] allbery at ece.cmu.edu
electrical and computer engineering, carnegie mellon university    KF8NH