[Haskell-cafe] Re: Different choice operations in a continuation monad

[Sebastian Fischer]

Heinrich Apfelmus wrote:
> Sebastian Fischer wrote:
>> I still don't understand why it is impossible to provide `orElse`  
>> with
>> the original type. I will think more about the reason you gave.
>
> The reason is that you have chosen the "wrong" type for your
> continuation monad; it should be
>
>  newtype CMaybe a = CMaybe (forall r. (a -> Maybe r) -> Maybe r)

Yes, with this type `orElse` has the same type as `mplus`, which is  
very nice.

<Aside>

> Personally, I recommend to stop thinking about continuations  
> altogether
> and instead use the approach I've outlined in "The Operational Monad
> Tutorial"

I appreciate your operational monad tutorial both for the idea and how  
you explained it. But the advice "stop thinking about X because Y is  
better" feels odd to me. Before I know by myself that Y is better than  
X (which requires thinking about both X and Y) I don't feel  
comfortable following such advice. Afterwards, I don't need such  
advice ;)

There may be more to X than just Y. IIRC, there is more to  
'continuations' than 'monads'. For example, the implementation of  
`callCC` does not type check with your changed data type.

</Aside>

I shall try to implement a monad that supports two choice operations  
(one which fulfills the distributive law and one which satisfies the  
cancellation property) with the operational package.

Cheers,
Sebastian


-- 
Underestimating the novelty of the future is a time-honored tradition.
(D.G.)