[Haskell-cafe] Extending the idea of a general Num to other types?

[Twan van Laarhoven]

Bulat Ziganshin wrote:
> Hello Simon,
> 
> Wednesday, September 5, 2007, 11:19:28 AM, you wrote:
> 
> 
>>        when you come across a case where GHC produces an
>>        unhelpful message, send it in, along with the program
>>        that produced it,
> 
> 
> i have put such tickets about year ago :)  basically, it was about
> just changing wording: instead of "inferred" write:
> 
> Expected type: ...
> Actual type: ...

This doesn't help enough. What is an 'expected' type? How is it not 
'actual'? I want it to be immediatly clear which type is which.

Say I write
 > "x" ++ 'y'
Right now the error is
     Couldn't match expected type `[Char]' against inferred type `Char'
     In the second argument of `(++)', namely 'y'

What always confuses me is which of these two types is the parameter I 
gave, and which is the one expected by the function? Changing 'infered' 
to 'actual' is an improvement, but it is not enough.

I would suggest:

     (++) expects second argument to be of type '[Char]'
     but was given 'y' of type 'Char'

Anothing thing that would be useful is *why* (++) expects a certian 
type, say I enter
 > "x" ++ [1::Int]
Instead of the above, the following would be more useful:

     the function (++) has type: [a] -> [a] -> [a]
     the first argument suggests: a = Char
     the second argument suggests: a = Int

Twan