In opposition of Functor as super-class of Monad

[Tony Morris]

I should hope not. The identity element (return, coreturn, mempty, pure,
Category.id) is almost never needed.

* http://hackage.haskell.org/package/semigroupoids
* https://gist.github.com/3871764



On 25/10/12 04:49, Ben Franksen wrote:
> First, let me make it clear that nowadays we are of course (I hope!) talking 
> about making not only Functor, but Applicative a super-class of Monad (so 
> Functor becomes a super-class by transitivity).
>
> Petr P wrote:
>> The main objections were that it would break existing code and that it
>> would lead to code duplication. The former is serious, [...]
>>
>> To address the first objection:
> I don't buy this "it breaks lots of code" argument. Adding the missing 
> instances is a complete no-brainer; as you wrote:
>
>> instance Applicative ... where
>>     pure   = return
>>     (<*>)  = ap
>> instance Functor ... where
>>     fmap   = liftM
> I do not think it is unreasonable to expect people to add such a simple and 
> practically automatic fix to some old programs in the interest of cleaning 
> up an old wart (and almost everyone agrees that this would be a good thing, 
> in principle).
>
> BTW, I guess most programs already contain the Functor instances (but maybe 
> not Applicative, as it is newer).
>
> I agree with Petr Pudlak that code duplication is not an issue, see above. 
> And yes, these "automatic" instances may have stronger super-class 
> constraints than strictly necessary. So what? The program didn't need the 
> Functor (or Applicative) instance anyway (or it already would have defined 
> it, in which case no change would be needed at all).
>
> "Default superclass instances" strike me as a complicated proposal for 
> solving trivial problems. The switch in Control.Exception (from data 
> Exception to class Exception) was much more disrupting, adapting programs 
> meant lots of changes everywhere exceptions are handled, not just adding 
> some trivial instances. Still people managed the transition.
>
> Cheers


-- 
Tony Morris
http://tmorris.net/