[Haskell] GADT: call for proper terminology

Paul Hudak paul.hudak at yale.edu
Wed Oct 11 09:47:55 EDT 2006


Lennart Augustsson wrote:

> Well, I think the GADT type definition syntax is the syntax data type 
> definitions should have had from the start.  Too bad we didn't  
> realize it 15 years ago.
>  -- Lennart

I agree!  In my experience teaching Haskell, the current syntax is a bit 
confusing for newbies, and for years I've been telling students, "It 
really means this: ..." and then I write out a syntax more like GADT's.

I also think that if we had adopted this syntax from the beginning, 
GADT's would have been "discovered" far sooner than now.

    -Paul



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