[Haskell-beginners] small expression evaluator

[Petr Novotnik]

Hello,

on my journey through Haskell I've hit a problem where I don't know any 
further and would greatly appreciate your help.

I've got this code so far:


data Value a e = VConst a
                | VFunc (e -> a)

evalV :: Value a e -> e -> a
evalV (VConst x) = const x
evalV (VFunc f) = f

liftV :: (a -> a -> t) -> (Value a e) -> (Value a e) -> e -> t
liftV f x y e = (evalV x e) `f` (evalV y e)

(.==.), (./=.) :: (Eq a) => (Value a e) -> (Value a e) -> e -> Bool
(.==.) = liftV (==)
(./=.) = liftV (/=)

(.&&.), (.||.) .... some more operators


This allows me to write client code like this:


data Person = Person {
       personName :: String
     , personAge :: Int
     }
     deriving (Show)

exampleExpr :: Bool
exampleExpr = (VConst 99) .==. (VFunc personAge) $ Person "pete" 99


I was wondering, whether it'd be possible to enable defining expression 
without the Value data constructors, i.e.


    99 .==. personAge $ Person "pete" 99


I've tried using a type class to have a function for lifting different 
types into Values.


class ToValue a e | a -> e where
   valueLift :: a -> Value a e


then I tried defining an instance for functions:

instance ToValue ((->) Person a) Person where
   valueLift f = undefined

in ghci:

 > :t valueLift personName
valueLift personName :: Value (Person -> String) Person

and suddenly I realized this will not work because I would need the type 
`Value String Person'.

Now, I'm stuck and don't know which path to take in order to come closer 
to being able writing "99 .==. personAge" or "personAge .==. 99". Maybe 
I'm approaching it in a completely wrong way or it's simply not 
possible. Do you have any ideas, hints?

Many thanks in advance for any kind of feedback,
pete.