[Haskell-cafe] Why does this result in a runtime loop instead of a type error or typechecker loop?

[Michael Snoyman]

It looks like you have an infinite loop created, where `hasLens = boolL`
and `boolL = hasLens`, and the two overlappable instances are each
fulfilling the constraints of the other instance.

On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 12:11 AM Theodore Lief Gannon <tanuki at gmail.com>
wrote:

> λ. :set -XFlexibleContexts -XFlexibleInstances -XMultiParamTypeClasses
> -XUndecidableInstances
> λ. import RIO
> λ. import Data.Has
> λ. class HasBool a where boolL :: Lens' a Bool
> λ. instance {-#OVERLAPPABLE#-} HasBool a => Has Bool a where hasLens =
> boolL
> λ. instance {-#OVERLAPPABLE#-} Has Bool a => HasBool a where boolL =
> hasLens
> λ. runRIO () $ view boolL
> ^CInterrupted.
>
> The RIO environment () doesn't contain a Bool. I can see how the
> typechecker might get lost in this, but I can compile an equivalent
> program; it loops on execution.
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