Improved documentation for Bool (Was: [Haskell-cafe] Comments from OCaml Hacker Brian Hurt)

[Nathan Bloomfield]

That's a great start, but "coproduct" is still pretty scary. Why not refer
to it as OneOrTheOtherButNotBothDataConstructor?

-Nathan Bloomfield

On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Sterling Clover <s.clover at gmail.com>wrote:

> This is a great effort, but the root of the problem isn't just poor
> documentation, but an insistence on some obscure name. How about renaming
> Bool to YesOrNoDataVariable? I think this would help novice programmers a
> great deal.
>
> It would also make the documentation flow much more naturally:
>
> The Bool type is the coproduct of the terminal object with itself.
>
> --huh?
>
> The YesOrNoDataVariable is the coproduct of the terminal object with
> itself.
>
> --Oh! Of course!
>
> --S
>
>
> On Jan 18, 2009, at 12:17 PM, Benja Fallenstein wrote:
>
>  On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 5:48 PM,  <roconnor at theorem.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> I noticed the Bool datatype isn't well documented.  Since Bool is not a
>>> common English word, I figured it could use some haddock to help clarify
>>> it
>>> for newcomers.
>>>
>>> -- |The Bool datatype is named after George Boole (1815-1864).
>>> -- The Bool type is the coproduct of the terminal object with itself.
>>>
>>
>> Russell, this does seem like it might be very helpful, but it might be
>> useful to include a note about what category you are working in.
>> People may sometimes naively assume that one is working in the
>> category of Haskell/Hugs/GHC data types and Haskell functions, in
>> which there are no terminal -- or initial -- objects ('undefined' and
>> 'const undefined' are distinct maps between any two objects X and Y),
>> or else in the similar category without lifted bottoms, in which the
>> empty type is terminal and the unit type isn't ('undefined' and 'const
>> ()' are both maps from any object X to the unit type). These niceties
>> will not confuse the advanced reader, but it may help the beginner if
>> you are more explicit.
>>
>> - Benja
>>
>>
>> P.S. :-)
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