[Haskell-cafe] a beginner question: decorate-op-undecorate

[Stephen Tetley]

On 8 February 2010 11:16, John Lato <jwlato at gmail.com> wrote:

> Regardless, I think this is a valid approach.  By thinking of data in
> terms of Functor, Traversable, etc., one can recognize these patterns.
>  Even if Binding is part of a larger syntax tree and can't reasonably
> be made polymorphic, creating an fmap-like function to do what the OP
> requested is IMHO simple and idiomatic Haskell.  Using Generics then
> simplifies the implementation.

Hi John,


Most definitely! - 'making a functor' is one of the strategies /
patterns to consider when designing data types. It would be nice if
there was a reference listing and defining such strategies. Phantom
types are another strategy (well, maybe a family of strategies if you
look closely), as is the de-normalisation by 'moving the sum' that I
mentioned previously in the thread, albeit on a smaller scale.

Best wishes

Stephen