Readline read_history and write_history addition

[Bertram Felgenhauer]

Yitzchak Gale wrote:
> OK. Here's a simplified real-world example. Say you want to
> write a simple library that interfaces the text-to-speech facilities
> available on multiple platforms. To play nicely with programs
> written in a monadic style, the interface might be something like:
> 
> class MonadIO m => Speech m where
>   sayText :: String -> m ()
>   runSpeech :: m a -> IO a

You meant  ma -> m a  here, right?

> instance Speech SomeSpeechSystem where
>   sayText t = ...
>   runSpeech x = do
>     liftIO startSomeSpeechSystem
>     ret <- x
>     liftIO stopSomeSpeechSystem
>     return ret

I think MonadIO is the wrong type class here. For example, ListT IO is
an instance of MonadIO, and may cause stopSomeSpeechSystem to be never
called, or several times, per startSomeSpeechSytem call, which is
clearly not what you wanted (this is still true for the 'ListT done
right' versions of ListT). ContT should also be interesting.

> But the proposal here is to raise the exception in a
> common situation that will definitely occur in regular
> usage. That may be fine in Java or Python, but it
> is a bad idea for IO exceptions in Haskell.

I agree with that though.

regards,

Bertram