Bug in Control.Monad.State

[Udo Stenzel]

Hello Yitzchak,
 
> > If an operation is too strict...  you can always
> > wrap the offending data in another constructor.
> 
> I have seen this claim several times, but I am
> not yet convinced.
> 
> In my case, the unwanted strictness is coming from
> the bind method of a monad from the standard
> libraries. I don't see how to get rid of that
> strictness by wrapping something in a constructor.

as Iavor already pointed out, theres the fine difference between being
string in some implementation detail (the pair of state and result) or
in the state itself, which I missed.

I was thinking of the state component, and I maintain that it should be
strict.  Rationale: if the state is some primitive type, you want it
strict anyway.  If it isn't, the strictness doesn't cost much anyway.
If it's still wrong, wrapping in a constructor helps.

Your problem however is the strict match against a pair you don't even
know is there.  Indeed, a strict match against a single constructor
datatype is probably always pointless.  So it's really a bug in the
library, after all.

 
> Here is an example. How would you fix this by
> wrapping something in a constructor?

You can't, since you don't have access to the offending pair.
 
> createItems :: RandomGen g => State g [Item]
> createItems =
>   liftM catMaybes $ runListT $
>   flip evalStateT initialState $ runMaybeT $
>   do
>     item <- liftRandom $ repeatM randomItem
>     updateState item
>     needMoreItems >>= guard
>     return item
>   where
>     liftRandom = lift . lift . lift

...but this is probably broken anyway.  After (repeatM randomItem)
presumably the state (the RandomGen) is _|_, but the type of createItems
would suggest it is still usable.  I wouldn't do that.  Other than that
it's a bit hard to see what you're trying to accomplish here.


Udo.
-- 
"Gadgets are not necessarily an improvement, vide the succession:
Blackboard -> Overhead Projector -> PowerPoint"
	-- E. W. Dijkstra
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