[Haskell-cafe] Re: Overloading functions based on arguments?

Jonathan Cast jonathanccast at fastmail.fm
Fri Feb 13 13:23:38 EST 2009


On Fri, 2009-02-13 at 11:12 -0700, John A. De Goes wrote:
> I come from a mathematical background (in which it is quite common to  
> "overload" function names and operators in particular)

Usually `when no ambiguity can arise', no?  Plenty of mathematical
practice rests on imprecision and the expectation that the human reader
will understand what you mean.  Haskell has to be understandable by the
machine (which is less forgiving, but also more reasonable!) as well.

> , so from my  
> point of view, the lack of name overloading is a wart

What?  Are you sure of your lexical choice here?

>  on Haskell. That  
> such a feature would complicate type inference is more a concern to an  
> implementor, not to an end-user of Haskell like myself.

Unless you, say, enjoy having type inference or something.

jcc




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