Make Prelude's map = fmap

[Carter Schonwald]

I'd support the map=fmap thing,


On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 3:00 PM, Daniel Díaz Casanueva <
dhelta.diaz at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> To be honest, I always write "fmap" instead of "map" in all my code.
> Sometimes I change the container I am using, and if I write "map", then I
> would have to change that "map" to "Something.map" or just "fmap". I know
> for sure that fmap is going to work in any Functor instance, so I don't
> have to deal with these things. In some situations (using functions from
> other classes as well), I only change the type signature of my functions,
> and the program keeps working as expected, which is awesome.
>
> Therefore, I support the proposal.
>
> By the way, how strong is the reason "it would be harder to learn"? Is it
> really that hard to use type classes? I don't think you need any deep math
> to understand how to work with type classes in Haskell. Even if they are
> called "Functor" or "Monad", you don't need to know about categories to use
> them. In fact, any Haskell student faces type classes in some point.
>
> In the other hand, I remember that at the beginning somebody showed me
> that "+" sums integers. And eventually, it worked with floats too. He
> called this "overloading" and, presented in that way, type classes appeared
> like something natural in my mind. Can't the same thing been done in this
> case?
>
> Best regards,
> Daniel Díaz.
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 11:59 AM, Andrew Butterfield <
> Andrew.Butterfield at scss.tcd.ie> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 21 Jun 2013, at 10:51, Nikita Volkov wrote:
>>
>> > Since there's been so many suggestions concerning radically changing
>> the Prelude recently, I'd like to start a poll on a subject.
>> >
>> > I know that "map" is limited to lists for the beginners, but then we're
>> already making a lot of unbeginnerish changes to Prelude. Also it's not a
>> monad transformer, but just a functor - how can a person learn Haskell
>> without understanding what a Functor is?
>>
>>
>> !!!! No one needs to know what a functor is in order to learn Haskell.
>> No one needs to know any category theory ideas to learn Haskell.
>>
>> Haskell is a very good vehicle to introduce such category-theoretic
>> concepts,
>> and as someone learns Haskell, learning about Haskell classes(*) such as
>> Functor,
>> etc, is very important and useful.
>>
>> My main reason for this sudden and abrupt response is that I would be
>> worried if
>> any Prelude re-design was predicated on the idea that Haskell beginners
>> need to understand Functors
>>  - they don't, but hopefully they will learn...
>>
>>
>> (*) as distinct from learning about the category theoretic notion of
>> functor.
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >
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>>
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>
>
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