Talk:Blow your mind

Name?

Is there a better name for this page? —Ashley Y 00:55, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

i completely agree, the name pretty much sucks. but what i really wanted, was to compile a collection of "idioms" that would enlarge the readers perception of what is possible in Haskell and how to go about it. so, i'll have to find a name that reflects this plan. —--J. Ahlmann 14:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

List / String Operations

Should this:

transpose . unfoldr (\a -> toMaybe (null a) (splitAt 2 a))

be this instead:

transpose . unfoldr (\a -> toMaybe (not $ null a) (splitAt 2 a))

Polynomial signum and abs

A sensible option for signum and abs for polynomials (with coefficients from a field) would be

• signum -> the leading coefficient
• abs -> the monic polynomial obtained by dividing by the leading coefficient

As with the abs and signum functions for Integer and Data.Complex's abs, the result of this signum is then a unit (ie, a value x for which there exists a y such that xy = 1), and we have

• signum a * abs a = a
• abs 1 = signum 1 = 1
• abs (any unit) = 1
• abs a * abs b = abs (a * b)