[Haskell-cafe] Type Directed Name Resolution

[wren ng thornton]

On 11/10/10 4:59 PM, Dan Doel wrote:
> I'll admit, the Agda overloading is handy. But I've always considered
> Haskell's lack of ad-hoc overloading to be a feature. Type classes give
> sensible types for what would normally be ad-hoc. Adding back ad-hoc functions
> that have no available general type feels like a step backward. Perhaps that's
> just me, though.

It's not just you.

I'd rather see a complete rewrite of the record system in order to make 
it into a real record system (perhaps by partly unifying records and 
modules, a la Agda and many other dependently typed languages). And I 
think TDNR is an abomination that merely paints over the problem; it 
doesn't solve the actual issue, and it only makes it harder to implement 
a solution later.

-- 
Live well,
~wren