[Haskell-cafe] Are bottoms ever natural?

Siddharth Bhat siddu.druid at gmail.com
Tue Dec 19 16:51:08 UTC 2017


So, I have two opinions to share on this:
Regarding the plane example, it is wrong to attempt to graph it on a plane,
precisely because the domain is not the plane.

I am confused by your assertion that it is impossible to avoid divergence
in mathematics: we do not define division as a *partial* function. Rather
we define it as a *total* function on a *restricted domain*.

So, what one would need is the ability to create these restricted domains,
which certain languages have as far as I am aware.

At that point, now that we track our domains and codomains correctly, all
should work out?

I would still like an answer to interesting transformations that are
enabled by having purity and laziness and are not encumbered by the
presence of bottoms.

Cheers,
Siddharth

On Tue 19 Dec, 2017, 20:36 Jonathan Paugh, <jpaugh at gmx.com> wrote:

> In the strictest sense, the math will bottom in exactly the same scenarios
> that Haskell will, but a human is unlikely to make that mistake because the
> result is nonsensical. If the set x you've provided is the domain for a
> given function g, then it doesn't make sense to reason about g(106): since
> 106 isn't in the domain, g(106) cannot exist in the codomain. Yet, if
> you're trying to graph the function on a plane, you have to deal it
> somehow, because 106 will exist on the plane.
>
> Getting to the original topic, it is impossible to avoid divergence in
> general, even in mathematics, which is in no way retrained by a compiler
> (although it may be limited by the operating environment ;). Languages (or
> maths) which eschew divergence are not very powerful.
> Consider that arithmetic diverges, because division is partial. But we
> humans often learn to deal with bottoms iimplicitly, by eliminating them
> from consideration in the first place. That might be analogous to
> refactoring the program to remove all offending cases, and recompiling.
>
> On December 19, 2017 8:35:57 AM CST, Baa <aquagnu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Pure functions can return "undefined" for some arguments values. So,
>> such function is partially-defined. Its domain has "gaps". This can be
>> coded in math, to avoid "undefined" (bottom), like
>>
>>   x = {-100..100, 105, 107..200}
>>
>> It's impossible in Haskell, but IMHO its possible in F*, due to DepTypes
>> and RefTypes ;)
>>
>> IMHO this is the reason to have bottom: possibility to return
>> "undefined" w/ simple correct type in signature (hidden bottom). If you
>> have a way to code arguments domains, no need to have bottom for pure
>> functions to "signal" gaps - gaps happen in run-time :) This is the one
>> of reasons for bottom to exist, as far as I understand. May be there are
>> other reasons :)
>>
>> ===
>> Best regards, Paul
>>
>>  Siddharth,
>>>
>>>  how would you deal with functions that terminate for some
>>>  arguments/inputs but do not terminate for the others ?
>>>
>>>  Alexey.
>>>
>>>  On Tue, 2017-12-19 at 07:20 +0000, (IIIT) Siddharth Bhat wrote:
>>>
>>>>  Is that really true, though?
>>>>>  Usually when you have an infinite loop, you have progress of some
>>>>>  sort. Infinite loops with no side effects can be removed from the
>>>>>  program according to the C standard, for example. So, in general,
>>>>>  we should allow programmers to express termination / progress,
>>>>>  right?
>>>>>
>>>>  At
>>>>
>>>>>  that point, no computation ever "bottoms out"?
>>>>>  Shouldn't a hypothetical purely functional programming language
>>>>>  better control this (by eg. Forcing totality?) It seems like we
>>>>>  lose much of the benefits of purity by muddying the waters with
>>>>>  divergence.
>>>>>  From an optimising compiler perspective, Haskell is on some weird
>>>>>  lose-lose space, where you lose out on traditional compiler
>>>>>  techniques that work on strict code, but it also does not allow
>>>>>  the awesome stuff you could do with "pure" computation because
>>>>>  bottom lurks everywhere.
>>>>>  What neat optimisations can be done on Haskell that can't be done
>>>>>  in a traditional imperative language? I genuinely want to know.
>>>>>  What are your thoughts on this?
>>>>>  Cheers
>>>>>  Siddharth
>>>>>
>>>>>  On Tue 19 Dec, 2017, 08:09 Brandon Allbery, <allbery.b at gmail.com>
>>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>  Define "natural".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  You might want to look into the concept of Turing
>>>>>>>  completeness.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>  One
>>>>>
>>>>>>  could define a subset of Haskell in which bottoms cannot
>>>>>>>  occur... but it turns out there's a lot of useful things you
>>>>>>>  can't do in such a language. (In strict languages, these often
>>>>>>>  are expressed
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>  as
>>>>>
>>>>>>  infinite loops of one kind or another. Note also that any
>>>>>>>  dependency on external input is an infinite loop from the
>>>>>>>  perspective of the language, since it can only be broken by the
>>>>>>>  external entity providing the input.)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  On Tue, Dec 19, 2017 at 1:47 AM, (IIIT) Siddharth Bhat
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>  <siddharth.b
>>>>>
>>>>>>  hat at research.iiit.ac.in> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  I've been thinking about the issue of purity and speculation
>>>>>>>>>  lately, and from what little I have read, it looks like the
>>>>>>>>>  presence of bottom hiding inside a lazy value is a huge
>>>>>>>>>  issue.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  How "natural" is it for bottoms to exist? If one were to
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  change
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  Haskell and declare that any haskell value can be speculated
>>>>>>>>>  upon, what ramifications does this have?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  Is it totally broken? Is it "correct" but makes programming
>>>>>>>>>  unpleasant? What's the catch?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  Thanks,
>>>>>>>>>  Siddharth
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
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