[Haskell-cafe] Type constrain in instance?

[Louis Zhuang]

Hi, I got an issue when playing haskell's type system, partically parametic
class/instance have no way to specify constrains of their parameters. for
example, i want to data struct to chain functions and their derivatives so we
can have combined function and derivations, as following

import qualified Control.Category as Cat

data ChainableFunction a b = CF { cfF :: (a->b), cfDeriv :: (a->b) }

class Module a b wher4e
  (*>) :: a -> b -> b

instance Cat.Category CF where
  id :: (Num a) -- GHC dis-allow this
  id = CF id (const 1)
  (.) :: (Num a, Num b, Num c, Module a b, Module b c)
      => CF a b -> CF b c -> CF a c -- GHC disallow this either
  (.) (CF f f') (CF g g') = CF (g.f) (\a -> f' a *> g' (f a))



However GHC only has kinds for class/instance like (*->*->*) so we are forced to
allow all possible types in instance code. I'm not sure if I'm modelling things
correctly or is there another way to do the same thing?

Cheers, Louis