higher-kind deriving ... or not

[Bernard James POPE]

Conor writes:

<some wonky types>

> newtype Copy a = Copy a deriving Show
>
>data Wonky f
> = Wonky
> | Manky (f (Wonky f))
> deriving Show

> show (Wonky :: Wonky Copy)

> I don't want to start an argument about how to solve this problem.  I
> do want to suggest that, for the time being, it would be better to
> reject `deriving Show' for type constructors like Wonky (ie those with
> higher-kind parameters) than to generate instances which break the
> compiler.
> 
> Or am I just being a spoilsport?

Rejecting such things might be a bit extreme, for example, you could
drop the 'deriving Show' on 'Copy a', define:

   instance Show (Copy a) where
      show _ = "whatever"

then: show (Wonky :: Wonky Copy) is fine and does not result in an infinite
loop of context reduction. Of course this makes the example even wonkier ... 

(In another post Tom Pledger illustrates another example: 

   data Sport f
     = Sport
     | Association (f Bool)
     deriving Show
   test = show (Sport :: Sport Maybe)

where higher kinded arguments do not cause any trouble).

The context reducer could probably do a better job at detecting when it is
in an infinite loop:

   Show (Wonky Copy)  --> Show (Copy (Wonky Copy)) --> Show (Wonky Copy) ...

Cheers,
Bernie.