[Haskell-cafe] DatatypeContexts / alternative

[Richard Eisenberg]

Hi café,

You might be interested in my recent paper on exactly this problem: how to make DatatypeContexts actually work the way you want: https://richarde.dev/papers/2020/partialdata/partialdata.pdf <https://richarde.dev/papers/2020/partialdata/partialdata.pdf>. Sections 1-3 and 6 onwards should be approachable with only a Haskell background (but not, say, type theory). (Section 4 gives details about the design, but these details are broadly inferrable from the other sections. Section 5 is a proof that the idea is sound; you can just take this on faith.)

There are, sadly, no plans to implement this paper, because the interactions with other GHC features means that implementing this would require dependent types. But perhaps with dependent types, we'll choose to go in this direction. In my role as a GHC Steering Committee member, I'm leery of proposals which would bring GHC further from the ideal expressed in this paper.

Richard

> On Feb 23, 2021, at 1:37 PM, CASANOVA Juan <Juan.Casanova at ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
> Tom,
> 
> Yes I realize that, but what I am expecting, I guess, is for the type checker to tell me (or anyone who tried to use it) that Foo (IO String) makes no sense, because Foo is always applied to something with Ord. That the very concept of the type Foo (IO String) itself does not type check.
> 
> I realize the answer might be that this is impossible with current Haskell, but then a) Is there any fundamental reason why it is impossible, like it would never be possible to do this, or is it just a feature that is not clear how to implement in GHC? and b) The basic problem that I have: Implementing an fmap for something like Foo. Can I really just not do it in any way or shape, with any form of workaround?
> 
> So far what I have been doing with situation similar to this is to just create the function fmap_foo that does what fmap does, with the proper constraints. But this is not enough when later on I want to use some other function that requires Foo to actually implement Functor. It would basically mean I have to re-implement all the structure while adding all the additional "Ord" constraints.
> 
> Thanks,
> Juan.
> 
> 
> From: Haskell-Cafe <haskell-cafe-bounces at haskell.org <mailto:haskell-cafe-bounces at haskell.org>> on behalf of Tom Ellis <tom-lists-haskell-cafe-2017 at jaguarpaw.co.uk <mailto:tom-lists-haskell-cafe-2017 at jaguarpaw.co.uk>>
> Sent: 23 February 2021 18:29
> To: haskell-cafe at haskell.org <mailto:haskell-cafe at haskell.org> <haskell-cafe at haskell.org <mailto:haskell-cafe at haskell.org>>
> Subject: Re: [Haskell-cafe] DatatypeContexts / alternative
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> On Tue, Feb 23, 2021 at 06:14:59PM +0000, CASANOVA Juan wrote:
> > module DatatypeContextsExample where
> >
> > import Data.Map
> > import Data.Bifunctor
> >
> > data Foo t = Foo (Map t t)
> >
> > instance Functor Foo where
> >     fmap f (Foo m) = Foo (fromList (fmap (bimap f f) (toList m)))
> >
> > This does not compile, because I am using toList and fromList, which
> > require (Ord t). But I cannot really have Foo be a functor in this
> > way without it. The thing is, every time I am going to use it, t is
> > actually going to be Ord. But how do I tell Haskell to have this
> > constraint?
> 
> You say that every time you are going to use it t is actually going to
> be Ord, but how does the compiler know that when it comes to type
> check fmap?  After all, somewhere else you could write
> 
>     fmap (const getLine) :: Foo t -> Foo (IO String)
> 
> and  IO String  is certainly not Ord.
> 
> Tom
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