[Haskell-cafe] Ord methods too strict?

[Sven Panne]

Am Mi., 2. Jan. 2019 um 15:42 Uhr schrieb Tom Ellis <
tom-lists-haskell-cafe-2017 at jaguarpaw.co.uk>:

> I mean that for any data type
>
>     data E of C1 | C2 | ...
>
> you are preposing that the (<=) of the derived Ord instance would have a
> special case for C1.
>

... and another special case for (>=) for the last enumeration value. And a
very special version for one-element enumerations. And what about (<) and
(>)? And derived (==) for one-element enumerations? And, and, and... :-P

Putting on the language lawyer hat: The Haskell Report explicitly states
that Bool's Ord instance is derived (section 6.1.1), and section 11.1
explicitly states that all derived operations for Eq and Ord are strict in
both arguments. Consequently, Implementing Ord for Bool in a lazier way
would violate the specification.

I would say that the the way the report specifies this is a good thing:
Coming up with special cases is a bad design principle, consistency almost
always trumps anything else (the human brain is notoriously small).
Furthermore, laziness is not always a good thing, it could lead to space
leaks, so e.g. making Bool's Ord operations lazier would definitely make
various people very unhappy sooner or later. :-)
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