[Haskell-cafe] Re: Improved documentation for Bool

[Dan Piponi]

On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 11:33 AM, Andrew Coppin
<andrewcoppin at btinternet.com> wrote:

> My only problem with it is that it's called Bool, while every other
> programming language on Earth calls it Boolean. (Or at least, the languages
> that *have* a name for it...)

Python: bool
ocaml: bool
C++: bool
C99: bool
C#: bool

> But I'm far more perturbed by names like Eq, Ord, Num, Ix (??), and so on.
> The worst thing about C is the unecessary abbriviations; let's not copy
> them, eh?

They're short so they're quick to parse (for a human) and read.
They're easy to type. If you have a constraint like (Eq a,Num a,Ord
a,Show a,Ix a) you can see all five type classes at a single glance
without having to scan your eye across the line. They're highly
mnemonic in the sense that once I'd learnt what they meant it became
hard to forget them again. What exactly is wrong with them?
--
Dan