[Haskell-cafe] Re: [Haskell] Re: Global Variables and IO initializers

[Ben Lippmeier]

Peter Simons wrote:
 > [Global variables]

> Well, to be fair one has to say that they are still quite
> popular although people call them "singletons" and other
> cute things these days.
> 
  > Frankly, the idea that anyone would want to jump through
> hoops to add them to a purely functional language sounds
> bizarre to me. But by all means, as long as the compiler
> extension is disabled per default I won't mind. :-)

A singleton doesn't nessesarally have to be "mutable". The idea is that 
the first time you use a singleton the object tied to that variable gets 
created, then all subsequent calls to it share the same object.

A Constant Applicative Form (CAF) (an expression defined at top level 
which has zero airity) in a pure functional language can be implemented 
in the same way. If you implement it as a singleton, it doesn't have to 
be created when its not needed.

All your top level library functions are also "global", you don't pass 
them into every function that uses them do you?

"Mutable" global state is another matter. It's sometimes well used and 
sometimes not. Just because you go and wrap a monad around it doesn't 
make it less mutable.

Ben.