String != [Char]

[Greg Weber]

On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 7:26 PM, Gabriel Dos Reis
<gdr at integrable-solutions.net> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 9:09 PM, Greg Weber <greg at gregweber.info> wrote:

>> Problem: we want to write beautiful (and possibly inefficient) code
>> that is easy to explain. If nothing else, this is pedagologically
>> important.
>> The goals of this code are to:
>>  * use list processing pattern matching and functions on a string type
>
> I may have missed this question so I will ask it (apologies if it is a
> repeat):  Why is it believed that list processing pattern matching is
> appropriate or the right tool for text processing?

Nobody said it is the right tool for text processing. In fact, I think
we all agreed it is the wrong tool for many cases. But it is easy for
students to understand since they are already being taught to use
lists for everything else.  It would be great if you can talk with
teachers of Haskell and figure out a better way to teach text
processing.

>
>
> -- Gaby