[Haskell-cafe] Thoughts about redesigning "Num" type class

[wren romano]

On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 10:08 AM, DreamApart AtHaskells
<rnmss.hs at gmail.com> wrote:
> A feasible design is: [...]

I'm all for redesigning the numeric hierarchy, but I must (once again)
raise my standard complaint against this sort of work, namely: there
must be a class for semirings.

Abelian groups are nice and all, but they are not the principle origin
for rings. There are far more objects which have
addition/multiplication without subtraction than there are objects
with addition/subtraction without multiplication. Everyone I've seen
suggest redesigning Num keeps overlooking this fact, since they're all
so hung up on module/vector spaces.

-- 
Live well,
~wren