library design conventions

[Hal Daume III]

it says:

> A function or action taking a some kind of state and returning a pair
> consisting of a result and a new state, the result is the first element
> of the pair and the new state is the second, see e.g. Random.

unfortunatly, Random and the mapAccum{RL} functions don't agree at
all.  the accumulating map functions assume the state is in the first
element and the new element is in the second, but random doesn't behave
this way and it appears neither do the libraries.

am i the only one bothered by this?  i would prefer if at least the
libraries would change and put the state in the first position of the
pair.  it's probably hopeless to get Random to change at this point, as
with the mapAccum functions.

 - Hal

--
Hal Daume III

 "Computer science is no more about computers    | hdaume@isi.edu
  than astronomy is about telescopes." -Dijkstra | www.isi.edu/~hdaume