Draft Libraries Document

[Alastair David Reid]

Malcolm Wallace <malcolm@abbess.demon.co.uk> writes:

> I notice you have gone for a "Numeric" category, rather than the
> "Mathematics" top-level category suggested by Dylan.

While pondering what else we'd put in mathematics other than numeric
stuff, I hit upon the crazy idea of adding:

   Mathematics.Monad

instead of putting Monad in Control (which is the current proposal, I
believe).

For:
o it is accurate
o monads which have nothing to do with control (List, Maybe, Parser?)
  will fit in quite nicely

Against:
o the Haskell learning curve gets even steeper
o There's a bit of a conflict between being easy to use and being
  mathematically pure (e.g., Num is almost a ring but not quite
  (fromInteger springs to mind)).  If we put things in Mathematics,
  the mathematicians have a strong argument for doing things the
  "Right Way" but if we leave it in Control, then the pragmatists
  retains some, ummm, control.

I'm not sure myself if I think this is a good thing but I thought I'd
throw it out and see if anyone else likes it enough to pick up.

-- 
Alastair Reid        reid@cs.utah.edu        http://www.cs.utah.edu/~reid/

ps Irrespective of this, I think Mathematics is a good idea because
sooner or later, someone is going to add matrix ops, rings, monoids,
categories, etc. to the library and they will want a place to hold
them.