[Haskell-cafe] What does the `forall` mean ?

[Eugene Kirpichov]

2009/11/12 Ryan Ingram <ryani.spam at gmail.com>:
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 2:50 AM, Eugene Kirpichov <ekirpichov at gmail.com> wrote:
>> But that's not an issue of semantics of forall, just of which part of
>> the rather broad and universal semantics is captured by which language
>> extensions.
>
> The forall for existential type quantification is wierd.
>
>> data Top = forall a. Any a   -- existential
>> data Bottom = All (forall a. a) -- rank 2
>

Hm, you're right. I didn't even remember you could define existential
types without GADT syntax.

I also find the GADT syntax much better for teaching people what an ADT is.

> I think it makes much more sense in GADT syntax:
>
>> data Top where
>>    Any :: forall a. a -> Top
>> data Bottom where
>>    All :: (forall a. a) -> Bottom
>
> where it's clear the forall is scoping the type of the constructor.
>
>  -- ryan
>



-- 
Eugene Kirpichov
Web IR developer, market.yandex.ru