[Haskell-cafe] default function definitions

[Malcolm Wallace]

>> -- Is it true that instances must exists before we can run function  
>> or
>> make subclasses?
>> instance C1  Person where
>> instance C1  Employee where
>
> You can *call* class methods only for types which are instances of  
> that
> class.

But you can certain *write* functions that make use of the class  
methods, even if no instances exist, provided they remain polymorphic  
over the class. e.g.

     cumulativeAges :: C1 a => [a] -> Integer
     cumulativeAges = sum . map age

The assumption would be that some client of your code would eventually  
need to declare at least one instance, for some type they are  
interested in, before they could use the function at that concrete  
type.  Those instances need not be in the same module as the  
definition of the class, nor in the same module as function  
definitions like cumulativeAges.


Regards,
     Malcolm