[Haskell-cafe] Re: philosophy of Haskell

[Gregory Crosswhite]

 On 08/18/10 11:30, Dan Doel wrote:
> Now, moving to the two loops:
>
>   loop = loop
>   loop' = \w0 -> let (w1, ()) = putStr "c" w0 in loop' w1
>
> How are we to distinguish between these? I know of exactly one Haskell 
> function that can do so: seq. And this is only because it can distinguish 
> bottom from const bottom. Extensionally, these are equal functions.
No, the very fact that one is bottom and the other is const bottom
demonstrates that they are *not* equal.

On 08/18/10 11:30, Dan Doel wrote:
> Consider, for instance:
>
>   multLoop = multLoop
>   multLoop' = \acc0 -> let acc1 = (*) 3 acc0 in multLoop' acc1
>
> These are also extensionally equal functions. multLoop is trivially bottom, 
> while multLoop' keeps an ever-increasing (or, repeatedly overflowing) 
> accumulator, but never returns. These are essentially the same as the world-
> passing loops above, but there's certainly no temptation to say they are not 
> equal.
I wouldn't say that they are equal at all.  They are *extensionally*
equal, but they aren't equal.

Cheers,
Greg