monad library

[Ross Paterson]

On Fri, Jul 25, 2003 at 12:40:22AM +0200, Iavor Diatchki wrote:
> 2. currently the monad library is under Unstable.Control.Monad, and i 
> would like to move it to some other place, so that we can use it, 
> without the need to later rename everything. the core of it should be 
> more or less stable. since moving libraries at the moment is quite work 
> intensive, it would be nice if we agreed on where to put it, so that we 
> don't have to move it again.  i propose that we put all the monads under
> Monad, thus one would import Monad.State, Monad.ReaderT, or 
> Monad.Transformers.  in this way  the old monad library can stay under 
> Control.Monad and programs that are using it need not change.  at some 
> point in the future we can decide to remove the old library or it can 
> just stay there.  and i like the shorter names (not to mention that it 
> is not clear what some of the monads have to do with control).

You're asking for a new top-level name Monad.  My implession from
SimonM's library document is that the intention is that top-level names
are to be limited (and certainly only added by agreement).  In this
particular case monads don't seem broad enough to be a category of
their own, and they are a sort of control structure.  Hierarchical
libraries mean changing our expectations about module name length
(e.g. Graphics.Rendering.OpenGL.GLU.Tessellation and the like).
Lucky Haskell has import aliases.

BTW, I've been assembling a small arrow transformer library, and many of
the structuring issues are similar.  One issue is how fine grained the
modules should be.  You have a module (Unstable.)Control.Monad.Trans
containing transformer classes and also several monad classes.  Those
monad classes don't necessarily belong in the transformer module; you
could even have one module for each.  With the monolithic module, users
are more likely to need explicit import clauses.

Another issue: typically one works with a stack of transformers sitting
on a base monad.  You have functions for adding or removing a transformer
from the top of the stack, and for manipulating the base monad.  It might
also be useful to have something to remove a State transformer from
anywhere in the stack, etc.