Type equivalency 2

[Ashley Yakeley]

At 2002-06-06 00:40, Cagdas Ozgenc wrote:

>From the previous discussion it has been brought to my attention that there
>is no much difference between
>
>a -> b
>
>and
>
>data F a b = Blank a b    -- "-> probably has a blank value constructor"

Well F and (->) may both be type-constructors of kind (* -> * -> *), but 
I think there the similarity ends. You may consider an F as holding an 
'a' and a 'b', but a function holds a 'b' for every 'a'. It's quite 
different, and F does not implement functions.

If you're wondering about the value constructor for a function, ask 
yourself, what would you pass to it?

You could do this, though:

    newtype F' a b = MkF' (a -> b)

...or this:

    type F'' = (->)

I think you'll find (->) is pretty much atomic. It's tempting to say a 
function is constructed from a piece of code, but for a lazy language 
pretty much any value might be represented by a piece of code...

-- 
Ashley Yakeley, Seattle WA