[Haskell-cafe] New type of ($) operator in GHC 8.0 is problematic

[Rustom Mody]

On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Christopher Allen <cma at bitemyapp.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 11:55 AM, Kyle Hanson <me at khanson.io> wrote:
>
>> I am also happy the discussion was posted here. Although I don't teach
>> Haskell professionally, one of the things I loved to do was show people how
>> simple Haskell really was by inspecting types and slowly putting the puzzle
>> pieces together.
>>
>> Summary of the problem for others:
>>
>> From *Takenobu Tani*
>>
>> Before ghc7.8:
>>
>>   Prelude> :t foldr
>>   foldr :: (a -> b -> b) -> b -> [a] -> b
>>
>>   Prelude> :t ($)
>>   ($) :: (a -> b) -> a -> b
>>
>>   Beginners should only understand about following:
>>
>>     * type variable (polymorphism)
>>
>>
>> After ghc8.0:
>>
>>   Prelude> :t foldr
>>   foldr :: Foldable t => (a -> b -> b) -> b -> t a -> b
>>
>>   Prelude> :t ($)
>>   ($)
>>     :: forall (w :: GHC.Types.Levity) a (b :: TYPE w).
>>        (a -> b) -> a -> b
>>
>>
>>
>> With this change it looks like I will no longer be able to keep `$` in my
>> toolbox since telling a beginner its "magic" goes against what I believe
>> Haskell is good at, being well defined and easy to understand (Not well
>> defined in terms of Types but well defined in terms of ability to precisely
>> and concisely explain and define whats going on).
>>
>> It looks like where the discussion is going is to have these types show
>> by default but eventually have an Alternative prelude for beginners.
>>
>> From *Richard Eisenberg:*
>>
>> - It's interesting that the solution to the two problems Takenobu pulls out below (but others have hinted at in this thread) is by having an alternate Prelude for beginners. I believe that having an alternate beginners' Prelude is becoming essential. I know I'm not the first one to suggest this, but a great many issues that teachers of Haskell have raised with me and posts on this and other lists would be solved by an alternate Prelude for beginners.
>>
>> I don't like the idea of fragmenting Haskell into "beginners" and
>> "advanced" versions. Its hard enough to get people to believe Haskell is
>> easy. If they see that they aren't using the "real" prelude, Haskell will
>> still be this magic black box that is too abstract and difficult to
>> understand. If they have to use a "dumbed down" version of Haskell to
>> learn, its not as compelling.
>>
>> There is something powerful about using the same idiomatic tools as the
>> "big boys" and have the tools still be able to be easy to understand.... by
>> default. Adding complexity to the default Haskell runs the risk of further
>> alienating newcomers to the language who have a misconception that its too
>> hard.
>>
>> Admittedly, I am not well informed of the state of GHC 8.0 development
>> and haven't had time to fully look into the situation. I am very interested
>> to see where this conversation and the default complexity of Haskell goes.
>>
>> --
>> Kyle
>>
>>
>> I don't want, nor do I think it's a good idea, to have a beginners'
> Prelude. My point about ($) was not expressly about beginners, it was about
> intermediate practitioners too.
>


Consider these two delightful pianists:  Martha
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLZLp6AcAi4> and  Rose
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bjKDJD-CLc>

   - Are they playing the same instruments?
   - Would they need the same teachers?
   - Ultimately, is the single moniker "pianist" meaningfully applicable to
   both?


I believe we are too taken with the fact that programming language *theory*
has advanced in the last couple of decades, while we miss the fact that
programming *pedagogy* has regressed in the same period. And one of the big
regresses is the illusion that a *single *language that spans the spectrum
from beginner learning to serious software engineering is a neat idea: a
grand unified/universal language.  Such a language already exists -- C++.
An earlier generation called it PL-1.

FP in ACM Curriculum 2013
<http://blog.languager.org/2015/06/functional-programming-moving-target.html>
spells out this – omnibus language – and such fallacies in more detail.

And as regards prior art regarding the benefits for multiple close but
different languages for teaching, one could see the multiple teachpacks
<http://docs.racket-lang.org/teachpack/index.html?q=> of Scheme/Racket
And even closer to home, helium
<http://www.open.ou.nl/bhr/heeren-helium.pdf> is a haskell expressly
designed to make teaching easier by not over-generalizing types
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/attachments/20160209/1665f616/attachment.html>