The dreaded M-R

Aaron Denney wnoise at ofb.net
Thu Jan 26 12:35:34 EST 2006


On 2006-01-26, John Hughes <rjmh at cs.chalmers.se> wrote:
> I don't think it's hard. I would just teach students to define
> functions with =, and "variables" with :=. I tell my students to write
> type signatures at the beginning anyway, so they don't risk being
> bitten by the M-R anyway. Beginning students just do what you tell
> them, and they already think of function and variable definitions as
> different. Learning a different syntax for one of them would not be a
> problem.
>
> Once they've mastered basic programming and start getting interested
> in things like overloading, then you have to explain how the M-R
> works. I'd much rather explain =/:= than try to teach them how you
> know whether a definition is shared or not right now.

And this gets back to "what the target audience for Haskell' is"
question.  Since I'm not a CS student, and I'm not teaching CS students,
this whole argument is rather unconvincing to me.

-- 
Aaron Denney
-><-



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