[Haskell-cafe] Haskell is a declarative language? Let's see how easy it is to declare types of things.

[Tom Ellis]

On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 06:29:51PM -0400, Albert Y. C. Lai wrote:
> You may think you know what's wrong, but you don't actually know
> until you know how to clarify to the beginners. Note: harping on the
> word "any" does not clarify, for the beginners exactly say this:
> 
> "Yeah, t can be *any* type, therefore *I* am making it Char. Isn't
> that what *any* means?"
> 
> The same reasoning happens in highschool and college math classes:
> 
> Teacher: prove (t+2)^2 = t^2 + 4t + 4
> Student: plug t=0. 2 = 2. works.
> Teacher: that's wrong, <blah blah> *any* <blah blah>
> Student: Yeah, t can be *any* number, therefore *I* am making it 0.
> Isn't that what *any* means?

"any" is very ambiguous.  Doesn't the problem go away if you replace it with
"all"?