[Haskell-cafe] simulation in the haskell way

[Eric Wong]

Hello, Haskellers!

I'm relatively new to haskell and due to my strong imperative background, it's 
really a pain to learn haskell. But I'm really indulged in it. :)

Now I think I understand the basics of Haskell very well, such as the type 
system and monad. And for those data-flow kind of applications, I can easily
structure the problem in a functional way and sketch out an intuitive picture
of the computation. But for simulation kind-of problems, in which I think OO
really fits the best, what's the haskell way to structure such problems? 
I once thought maybe I can use the State monad to simulate objects. But it's
really hard for me to implement, because I think State monad is used to 
simulate a global shared state, is it right?

Then what's the best way to simulate private states or just instead how to
solve simulation problems such as a physical engine using the haskell way?

Best regards.
Eric