[Haskell-cafe] Re: powerSet = filterM (const [True, False]) ... is this obfuscated haskell?

[Gleb Alexeyev]

On Jul 17, 2009 1:40pm, Thomas Hartman wrote:
 > my question to all 3 (so far) respondants is, how does your
 >
 > explanation explain that the result is the power set?
 >
 >

I guess you forgot to reply to the cafe.

Well, to me the modified definition I posted looks like the essence of 
powerset, the set of all subsets. Every element x of the input list 
divides the powerset in 2 halves, the first one contains x, the second 
one doesn't. Filtering on the non-deterministic predicate (\x -> return 
True `mplus` return False) in the List monad does exactly that.