[Haskell-cafe] Numeric Prelude and identifiers (Was: fad 1.0 -- Forward AutomaticDifferentiation library)

[Jan-Willem Maessen]

On Apr 5, 2009, at 9:33 AM, Henning Thielemann wrote:

>
> On Sun, 5 Apr 2009, Kalman Noel wrote:
>
>> Henning Thielemann schrieb:
>>> with advanced type classes:
>>> http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/numeric-prelude/0.0.5/doc/html/MathObj-PowerSeries.html
>>
>> I'll take this as another opportunity to point out that the Haddock  
>> docs
>> of the Numeric Prelude are highly unreadable, due to all qualified  
>> class
>> and type names appearing as just C or T.
>
> It's Haddock's fault. :-) I have written a Trac ticket, but  
> trac.haskell.org does currently not respond.

I may be treading in murky waters here, but I do think a large part of  
the problem is that the Numeric Prelude has chosen to use ML naming  
conventions (which refer to types in a module as T, etc.) when you're  
writing a Haskell program.  Surely if the types, classes, and so forth  
were given evocative names, numeric prelude programs would become  
readable?  And as a special bonus, though it may offend your  
sensibilities, numeric prelude programs might be able to use  
unqualified import in certain circumstances?

-Jan-Willem Maessen
  [For each language, its own idiom!]