[Haskell-cafe] Monad m => m (Maybe a) -> m (Maybe a) -> m (Maybe a)

[Chris Wong]

On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 11:07 AM, Andras Slemmer <0slemi0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, "try" is really doing two things: chaining Maybes, and then adding a
> monadic context:
> try :: Monad m => m (Maybe a) -> m (Maybe a) -> m (Maybe a)
> try = liftM2 (<|>)
> (You could weaken the assumption by using (Applicative m) instead)

That's different to Evan's original function.

Evan's solution short-circuits: it does not execute the second action
if the first succeeds. But your one runs both actions unconditionally.

For example, the expression

    try (return $ Just ()) (putStrLn "second action executed" >> return Nothing)

outputs "second action executed" with your solution, but not with Evan's.

The lesson is, applicative and monadic composition don't always yield
the same results.

Chris