Void type in base

[Andreas Abel]

+1 for adding an empty type.
-1 for current proposal.  Reason:

"void" is another name for the unit type, not for the empty type.  We 
know "void" from C, and there it is analogous to Haskell's "()".

Also, in Control.Monad there is

   void :: Functor f => f a -> f ()

which casts a computation to return something in the unit type, not in 
the empty type.

"Returning nothing" means giving no information, that is, a member of 
the *unit* type (in contrast, having a member of the empty type is not 
having nothing, quite the opposite, it is absolute power; one get 
everything from it using ex-falso-quod-libet).

The type could be called "Empty" instead.

"absurd" seems fine.

Why having "vacuous"?  Is it different from "fmap absurd"?

Cheers,
Andreas

On 17.07.13 7:14 AM, Shachaf Ben-Kiki wrote:
> It seems strange that there's a canonical unit type -- () -- which is
> used extensively, but no canonical type for its dual, the uninhabited
> type. The closest we have is in Edward Kmett's void package, but
> several people seem to prefer to write it themselves rather than incur
> an extra dependency, which is a shame.
>
> The proposal is just to copy the Data.Void API into base:
>
>      data Void -- EmptyDataDecls is in Haskell 2010
>      absurd :: Void -> a
>      vacuous :: Functor f => f Void -> f a
>      -- instances for Typeable, Data, Generic, Eq, Ord, Show, Read, Ix, Exception
>
> (void also has a vacuousM for Monad, but since Functor will probably
> become a superclass, it might not be necessary to export it... By
> default it probably makes sense to include it, though.)
>
> void could then re-export Data.Void so packages that depend on it will
> keep working.
>
> ("void" also has unsafe functions -- namely unsafeVacuous, which isn't
> safe with an invalid Functor instance -- but those probably don't
> belong in base.)
>
> hashable and semigroups would also need to be updated to add their
> respective instances as non-orphans.
>
> The instances should probably be made compatible with void's. In
> particular note that void's Eq instance has `_ == _ = True`.
>
> Discussion period: 2 weeks.
>
>      Shachaf
>
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Theoretical Computer Science, University of Munich
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