[Haskell-cafe] Alternative to newtypes or orphan instances

[Miguel Mitrofanov]

Because your type 'T' doesn't have an 'instance C'.

24.08.2015, 13:45, "Clinton Mead" <clintonmead at gmail.com>:
> Why does 'foo' fail? The module that 'foo'is defined in still can see C. C still exists. So as long as I import foo it should still work yes?
>
> On Monday, 24 August 2015, Miguel Mitrofanov <miguelimo38 at yandex.ru> wrote:
>> OK. There is no point in having a class C, if there is no functions to work with it. So, this "other package" likely contains some functions that take types (of that class) as input. Like this:
>>
>> foo :: C a => a -> Int
>>
>> You don't need class C if you aren't using any functions from the library. So, with your (c), if you try to do
>>
>> a :: T
>> a = ...
>>
>> b :: Int
>> b = foo a
>>
>> you'll get a compile error. THAT is the problem.
>>
>> 24.08.2015, 13:28, "Clinton Mead" <clintonmead at gmail.com>:
>>> There's no new data. Class C already exists in another package. Data T already exists in another different package.
>>>
>>> The options are:
>>>
>>> a) Create a newtype MyT and an instance MyT of C.
>>> b) Just create an orphan instance T of C.
>>> c) Create a new class C1, forward its implementation to C, and add an instance T of C1.
>>>
>>> I'm suggesting (c) is best, but I haven't seen this elsewhere, the debate is usually between (a) and (b).
>>>
>>> I don't really understand the problems you're proposing with (c), but I'm not sure if that's because I'm misunderstanding you or I'm not explaining myself well.
>>>
>>> On Monday, 24 August 2015, Miguel Mitrofanov <miguelimo38 at yandex.ru> wrote:
>>>> If, for your data, you create an instance of the new class — but not the original one, then you can't use all the machinery that expects input being of the old class. Which is the point.
>>>>
>>>> 24.08.2015, 12:55, "Clinton Mead" <clintonmead at gmail.com>:
>>>>> The original class still exists, I can't see how making a new class based on the old on affects that. Won't existing functions in modules which import the old class instead of the new class continue to work?
>>>>>
>>>>> On Monday, 24 August 2015, Erik Hesselink <hesselink at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> On 24 August 2015 at 09:18, Clinton Mead <clintonmead at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> A second approach is an orphan instance. The recommendation here is to put
>>>>>>> the orphan instances in their own module, so the user can choose to import
>>>>>>> them.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This may works ok if your user is writing an executable. But what if your
>>>>>>> user is writing a library themselves. But once, you, or your user, directly
>>>>>>> uses one of the instances, they need to import it, and they pollute the
>>>>>>> global instance namespace for anyone that uses their package.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For this reason, I think the recommended course of action is to make a
>>>>>> canonical place for the instance, so that everyone can use it. For
>>>>>> example, if you have a library 'foo' providing T, and a library 'bar'
>>>>>> providing C, put the instance in a new package 'foo-bar' (or
>>>>>> 'bar-foo'). Then everyone can use that one instance, since Haskell is
>>>>>> built on the assumption that every type has one unique instance per
>>>>>> class.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I want to suggest a third option:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> (3) Copying the class.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This would make a new distinct class, which means you can't call any
>>>>>> methods which have the original class as the context (f :: C a => a ->
>>>>>> a) since that class won't exist for type T (you are trying to avoid
>>>>>> defining that orphan instance). So I don't think this is usable in
>>>>>> most cases, unless I'm missing something.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Erik
>>>>> ,
>>>>>
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