STM.check should have type Bool -> STM ()

[Favonia]

Hi all,

Recently I am using amazing STM to program concurrent programs at
ease. However I am puzzled by the type of STM.check. Currently it has
the type "Bool -> STM a" and returns undefined when the input is True.
I think it should have been "Bool -> STM ()" and returned () instead.

I couldn't image a situation that we need such generality in the type.
Even worse, someone needs to write "void $ check x" or something to
suppress warnings. In the paper "Beautiful Concurrency" the check
function actually has the type "Bool -> STM ()". Thus, my question is,
is there any good reason to have the type "Bool -> STM a" and to
return undefined? If not, I am proposing this implementation (which is
identical to the one in the Beautiful Concurrency):

check :: Bool -> STM ()
check b = if b then return () else retry

Thank fryguybob on the IRC for discussing with me. There's only a SO
question on this: http://stackoverflow.com/q/8364903. By the way,
STM.check seems to be the only undocumented API in the stm package.
:-P

Thanks,
Favonia