[Haskell-cafe] Serialization of (a -> b) and IO a

[Luke Palmer]

On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 6:16 PM, Dan Doel <dan.doel at gmail.com> wrote:
> serialize is not at all the same in this regard. There is no class of
> functions that is immune to its inspection powers, presumably, because that's
> its whole point. But that also means that there is no class of functions for
> which we are justified in reasoning equationally using the standard
> extensional equality. The only way that would be justified is saying,
> "serialize doesn't exist."

Admittedly, the class of reasoning I usually use in my Haskell
programs, and the one that you talked about using earlier this
message, is essentially "seq doesn't exist".  However, I prefer to use
this class of reasoning because I would prefer if seq actually didn't
exist (er, I think the implication goes the other way).  Not so for
serialize: I would like a serialize function, but I don't want the
semantic burden it brings.  If only there were a way to...

oh yeah.

serialize :: (a -> b) -> IO String

I still don't really get what we're arguing about.

Luke