Language extension proposal

[Ashley Yakeley]

In article <20030625041751.GA29774@smtp.alicorna.com>,
 Andrew J Bromage <ajb@spamcop.net> wrote:

> Another example is floating point format information, like the
> information in C's <float.h>.  One might implement this as:
> 
> 	class (Bounded a) => FloatTraits a where
> 	    epsilon :: a		-- OK
> 	    mantissaDigits :: Int	-- Not OK!

Oh I do this all the time in HBase. I simply do this:

 data Type a = MkType

 getType :: a -> Type a
 getType _ = MkType

 class (Bounded a) => FloatTraits a where
   epsilon :: a
   mantissaDigits :: Type a -> Int

The only annoyance is that you frequently have to write (MkType :: Type 
MyFloat). Syntactic sugar for _that_ would be useful.

-- 
Ashley Yakeley, Seattle WA