fail, MonadFail, or MonadPlus? (was Re: broken Monad Either instance?)

[Evan Laforge]

> With a separate MonadFail class we have 4 options:
>
> 1) Simply translate to: "e >>= \p -> do{stmts}" instead. This means
> pattern match errors are always turned into errors.
>
> 2) Give all do-expressions a MonadFail constraint.
>
> 3) Only give do-expressions with pattern bindings a MonadFail constraint.
>
> 4) Only give do-expressions with pattern bindings with uncomplete
> patterns a MonadFail constraint.

I'm sure this has been brought up in the many 'fail' discussions that
have occurred, but what about MonadPlus and substituting a refuted
pattern match with mzero?  The only time I've used refutable pattern
matches is in a list or parser where something like "'a' <-
Parse.char" is convenient.  What about pattern matches desugaring as
something like

tmp <- Parse.char
case tmp of
  'a' -> { ... rest of do block ... }
  _ -> mzero

Of course that just replaces MonadFail with MonadPlus and how to
decide if the extra constraint is needed is still unsolved, but at
least it's an already existing class.

I originally wanted to ask for uses of 'fail', because I haven't heard
of any of those, but then I thought of how I use refutable pattern
matches.  And then that made me think the way fail takes a String is
awkward and weird and none of my refutable matches make use of that
fact.  Then that made me think reusing MonadPlus's mzero seemed more
appropriate.