[Haskell-cafe] Linking and unsafePerformIO

[David Roundy]

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 05:20:35PM +0100, Jules Bean wrote:
> David Roundy wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 04:05:23PM +0100, Jules Bean wrote:
>>> Constants are mathematical and universal, like pi. That is what the
>>> semantics of haskell say.
>>
>> Where do the semantics of haskell say this? 
>
> You should better ask 'which semantics?'.
>
> The semantics in which a value of type "Int -> Int" is denoted by a
> mathematical function from Int to Int. In that semantics a value of
> type "Int" denotes a specific Int.  And that denotation is, of
> course, entirely independent of compiler or OS or package or dynamic
> loading or any concern like that.
>
> This is, to my mind the "often assumed but never written down"
> semantics of haskell. It's certainly the semantics *I* want haskell
> to have.
>
> > How does it interact with fixing bugs (which means changing
> > mathematical and universal constant functions--since all functions
> > are constants)?
>
> That's fine. Changing a program changes it denotation.
>
> Running a program on a different interpreter or compiler had better
> not change its denotation, otherwise it [the denotation] is not much
> use as a basis for reasoning.

But you're saying above that we can't change programs, right? You
probably won't be surprised to hear that different compilers are
different programs.  And different packages are also different
programs.  Are you the only one who's allowed to fix bugs?

I personally feel that it's a valuable feature that we're allowed to
implement distinct libraries with a shared API, which is a feature
that you claim violates the semantics you want haskell to have.

I would say that putting constants that are known at compile time into
the IO monad is an abuse of the IO monad, since those constants have
nothing to do with IO, and are in fact *constants* which cannot vary
at run time.

David