[Haskell-cafe] Re: class default method proposal

[apfelmus]

Luke Palmer wrote:
> Isn't a type which is both a Monad and a Comonad just Identity?
>
> (I'm actually not sure, I'm just conjecting)

Good idea, but it's not the case.

   data L a = One a | Cons a (L a)   -- non-empty list

      -- standard list monad
   instance Monad L where
       return = One

           -- join concatenates all lists in the list
       join (One y)               = y
       join (Cons (One x) ys)     = Cons x (join ys)
       join (Cons (Cons x xs) ys) = Cons x (join (Cons xs ys))


   class Comonad c where
       counit :: c a -> a
       cobind :: c a -> (c a -> b) -> c b

   instance Comonad L where
       counit (One x)    = x   -- that's why we insist on non-emptiness
       counit (Cons x _) = x

           -- f has access to the whole past
       cobind ys@(One x)     f = One  (f ys)
       cobind ys@(Cons x xs) f = Cons (f ys) (cobind f xs)


Checking the laws is left as an exercise for the reader :)


Regards,
apfelmus