BAL paper available

[Wojciech Moczydlowski, Jr]

On Wed, 16 May 2001, Fergus Henderson wrote:

> On 15-May-2001, Wojciech Moczydlowski, Jr <khaliff@astercity.net> wrote:
> > On 15 May 2001, Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk wrote:
> > > What should be improved compared to existing STUArray Int Double
> > > and similar?
> > 
> > A simple standard proposal, not using ST and multiparameter type classes,
> > so that it would be possible to implement it in other compilers (namely nhc),
> > would be a great improvement for me.
> 
> I think multiparameter type classes or other extensions to Haskell 98 are
> really needed to solve these kinds of problems in a simple and elegant way.
> 
> The right solution, IMHO, is to extend nhc and other Haskell compilers
> to support multiparameter type classes, not to try to shoehorn things
> that don't fit into Haskell 98.
> 
> Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit

I don't like the idea of a program working which compiles only under
compilers which have certain language extensions built in. 

If I understand things correctly, there is a list of language extensions
(FFI for example), which has been accepted by all Haskell compilers developers. If
multiparameter type classes were in that list, I would agree.

Besides, MArray.lhs uses ST and ST requires not only multiparameter type
classes, but also explicit universal quantification. I don't like ST and
the idea that someone who wants to use arrays outside of IO has to use ST
gives me creeps. 

By the way, I'm really surprised by the lack of time complexity information
in MArray. I mean, that's the most important thing in arrays - that one can
update/read a data in O(1). 

Wojciech Moczydlowski, Jr