Strict Haskell debate

[Ashley Yakeley]

Andy Gill wrote:
> I'd like to see a way of enforcing return strictness, that is where you
> have confidence that what a function is returning is fully evaluated.
> 
> Imagine a function hstrict;
> 
>      hstrict :: a -> a

Is this like deepseq, that strictly evaluates internal structure using seq?

> With hstrict you can write functions in the style.
> 
> fun f a b c = hstrict $ ....
>   where
>     ...
>     ...

But surely fun can return the unevaluated thunk (hstrict x)? Since 
hstrict has not yet been called, it can't do its strictifying magic, 
whatever that is.

-- 
Ashley Yakeley