[Haskell-beginners] A first try

[Heinrich Apfelmus]

David Place wrote:
> So, the type of your withFile would be
> 
> withFile :: FilePath -> IOMode -> (Handle -> IO ()) -> IO ()
> 
> completely prohibiting return values from withFile?  Sounds good.  In
> that case, you don't need to change the behavior of withFile at all,
> just its type.

Actually, the type is

    withFile :: FilePath -> (String -> IO a) -> IO a

There is still a return value, but  withFile  makes sure that it's 
evaluated to WHNF. If you choose a = (), then you're fine, otherwise 
it's not entirely foolproof.

> It's hGetContents that bothers me.  I have found that friends who I
> have  convinced to learn Haskell always trip over this right away.
> They want to write a simple program that processes a file and
> immediately get tangled up with lazy IO and looking up the definition
> of deepseq.  It's kind of embarrassing.  Sadly, they never pick
> creating beautiful, incremental lazy algorithms with sharing as their
> "Hello World" projects.

That's why I usually only teach  readFile  and  writeFile  in the beginning.

By the way, from a Haskell point of view, it's the operating system that 
is being unreasonable here, not the other way round. :D


Best regards,
Heinrich Apfelmus

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