Proposal: Add Data.Semigroup to base, as a superclass of Monoid

[Nikita Volkov]

On Jun 12, 2013, at 2:40 AM, Johan Tibell <johan.tibell at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't want to see us break all current code every time someone decides that we should add another layer (pointed, say) between e.g. functor and monad.

This can also be considered a good argument to make as many of the breaking changes as possible at once. This is why I believe we should initiate polls on all imaginable initiatives, including the Pointed. My votes for Semigroup and Pointed are neutral, i.e. 0 and 0.

Concerning the discussion on Monoid's <>. Since we've stepped on a path of Prelude generalization, what about reimplementing the ++ in terms of Monoid? It's proven to be quite useful in the Snoyman's (of Yesod) classy-prelude experiment. Just think about it: we don't lose anything, and we get the expected String-like API for working with Text, ByteString and etc, and we also free up the <> operator.
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