Fixing Fix

Tue Mar 24 18:41:34 UTC 2015

I don't understand what you're getting at, Edward. The specific type I
mentioned, newtype Fix f = Fix (f (Fix f)), seems to be defined and used in
various places. Are there important differences in the instances *for that
type*? Or are you concerned about the higher-order versions?

I'm also not at all committed to putting this in base, per se. I just don't
like the fact that various unrelated packages with very different purposes
are all doing the same thing, and that these identical types cannot be used
together.
On Mar 24, 2015 2:25 PM, "Edward Kmett" <ekmett at gmail.com> wrote:

> History of indexed:
>
> The version of indexed on hackage was split out of my old category-extras
> package by Reiner Pope. I asked a couple of years back if I could replace
> it with a new version, and he said yes.
>
> The version on my github is my exploration of that design space. It was
> stalled because of issues with GHC circa 7.6. Notably: Any inhabiting every
> kind meant that it wasn't sound to assume that the only inhabitants of the
> product kind (i,j) are of the form '(a, b) for a :: i, and b :: j. We've
> fixed most of those issues in GHC 7.10, so in theory i could pick up my
> indexed package and finish it. There are other issues still outstanding,
> but that was the big one.
>
> I think there are enough points in this design space that I'm much much
> happier to have this sort of thing in libraries that are removed from base
> than having it in base itself. As an example: Making useful instances for
> it requires either UndecidableInstances or switching to something like
> Data.Functor.Classes or the machinery prelude-extras. I'm not terribly
> comfortable with base making a bet on one such horse at the expense of the
> others, and I'm even less comfortable moving the data type up where any
> such instances would perforce be orphans if we didn't supply them.
>
> *tl;dr* -1
>
> -Edward
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 1:00 PM, Oliver Charles <ollie at ocharles.org.uk>
> wrote:
>
>> Oh, I see your confusion - you're looking at `indexed` on Hackage, but I
>> meant the unreleased library on Github. That uses the slice category
>> presentation of higher-order monads/functors, which is what you're talking
>> about:
>>
>> https://github.com/ekmett/indexed/blob/master/src/Indexed/Functor.hs#L53
>>
>> Though HFix isn't there, but I feel it would be a suitable addition to
>> the library.
>>
>> It is unfortunate that there is a name conflict.
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 4:28 PM, Erik Hesselink <hesselink at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> That seems slightly different, more related to indexed monads with
>>> pre- and postconditions. They have many more type variables...
>>>
>>> Erik
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 5:20 PM, Oliver Charles <ollie at ocharles.org.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>> > Higher order stuff is very useful, but I don't think it needs to
>>> belong in
>>> > the same place as Data.Functor.Fix. Edward Kmett's 'indexed' library
>>> will
>>> > probably deal with this, when we have a GHC that's smart enough to
>>> > understand it ;)
>>> >
>>> > - Ollie
>>> >
>>> > On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 3:40 PM, Erik Hesselink <hesselink at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> Ugh, you're right, I renamed the variables and made a mistake. The
>>> >> outer variable should stay the same of course, your signature is
>>> >> correct.
>>> >>
>>> >> For a use site of HFix, see the multirec package [0], although that
>>> >> might not really clarify things :) We also have a use internally, but
>>> >> I just realized we can probably simplify that away.
>>> >>
>>> >> Regards,
>>> >>
>>> >> Erik
>>> >>
>>> >> [0]
>>> >>
>>> http://hackage.haskell.org/package/multirec-0.7.5/docs/Generics-MultiRec-HFix.html
>>> >>
>>> >> On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 4:25 PM, David Feuer <david.feuer at gmail.com>
>>> >> wrote:
>>> >> > I have no comment on your higher-order version (because I don't
>>> >> > understand
>>> >> > it yet), but the type you give for hmap looks unlikely. Did you mean
>>> >> >
>>> >> > hmap :: (g :-> h) -> f g :-> f h ?
>>> >> >
>>> >> > On Mar 24, 2015 10:58 AM, "Erik Hesselink" <hesselink at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 7:23 AM, M Farkas-Dyck <
>>> strake888 at gmail.com>
>>> >> >> wrote:
>>> >> >> > On 22/03/2015 at 23:01:47 -0400, David Feuer wrote:
>>> >> >> >> There are a good number of different packages that define either
>>> >> >> >>
>>> >> >> >> newtype Fix f = Fix (f (Fix f))
>>> >> >> >>
>>> >> >> >> or something equivalent except for naming. Most of the name
>>> >> >> >> variation
>>> >> >> >> is in the name of the data constructor and/or record selector.
>>> This
>>> >> >> >> does not look like an ideal situation to me. Most
>>> problematically,
>>> >> >> >> the
>>> >> >> >> only way to convert one to another is with unsafeCoerce.
>>> >> >> >>
>>> >> >> >> I think it would be rather nice to choose one canonical place
>>> for
>>> >> >> >> this
>>> >> >> >> definition, and let everyone else use it.
>>> >> >> >
>>> >> >> > +1
>>> >> >> >
>>> >> >> > I propose
>>> >> >> >
>>> >> >> > module Data.Fix where
>>> >> >> >
>>> >> >> > newtype Fix f = Fix { unFix :: f (Fix f) }
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> I'm used to
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >>     newtype Fix f = In { out : f (Fix f) }
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> But all the other suggestions look fine to me, too.
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> I've also often used this variation:
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >>     newtype HFix f a = In { out :: f (HFix f) a }
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> This allows you to take the fixed point of e.g. monad stacks and
>>> >> >> indexed types. The function you propose below can then be a type
>>> class
>>> >> >> function of an indexed Functor class:
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >>     type f :-> g = forall a. f a -> g a
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >>     class HFunctor f where
>>> >> >>       hmap :: (a :-> b) -> f a :-> g a
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> Does this deserve a place somewhere as well? Or is it too
>>> specialized?
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> > Perhaps too we ought to name and define _ :: (∀ a . f a -> g a)
>>> ->
>>> >> >> > Fix f
>>> >> >> > -> Fix g there.
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> Some variation of 'map' seems sensible, like 'hmap' (but see
>>> above) or
>>> >> >> 'mapFix'.
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> Erik
>>> >> _______________________________________________
>>> >> Libraries mailing list
>>> >> Libraries at haskell.org
>>> >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>
>>
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>
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