[Haskell-cafe] Re: [Haskell] Top Level <-

[John Meacham]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 02:23:04AM +0100, Lennart Augustsson wrote:
> BTW, I'm not contradicting that the use of global variables can be
> necessary when interfacing with legacy code, I just don't think it's
> the right design when doing something new.

As with all design decisions, it is sometimes the right thing and
sometimes the wrong one. And sometimes the most expedient. (which,
occasionally, is a perfectly valid driving force behind a certain bit of
coding). However, I am fully convinced it is necessary. You don't even
have to look further than Haskell 98 to find a use in the Random module,
and Data.Unique _depends_ on the state being global for correctness.

now, _interfaces_ that depend on global state are a completely different
matter. To quote what I wrote in the jhc manual:

"Note, top level global variables can be indicative of design issues. In
general, they should only be used when necessary to interface with an
external library, opaque uses inside a library where the shared state
can not be externally observed, or inside your Main program as design
dictates."

However, note the weasel words. Those are in there on purpose, every
design calls for different solutions. To blanketly say certain
constructs are just wrong to the point of disallowing them in the
language, especially when they are common practice at the moment, just
doesn't seem right.

        John

-- 
John Meacham - ⑆repetae.net⑆john⑈