Hi list,
there is one thing about the "Finally tagless" EDSL approach that really
confuses me: (Well more than one actually but this one more so)
When to decide to introduce a term as a primitive in the syntax class
and when to define it from primitives already defined.
For example this one here:
type Arr exp a b = exp a -> exp b
class EDSL exp where
lam :: (exp a -> exp b) -> exp (Arr exp a b)
app :: exp (Arr exp a b) -> exp a -> exp b
int :: Int -> exp Int -- Integer literal
add :: exp Int -> exp Int -> exp Int
sub :: exp Int -> exp Int -> exp Int
mul :: exp Int -> exp Int -> exp Int
Let's take "mul" here, defined as a "primitive", in other words defined
in the EDSL class.
Technically, with lam, app and add already defined, I could have defined
"mul" outside the EDSL class, just built from the 3 primitive operators.
Of course doing so then does not give me the possibility to choose
alternative evaluation strategies for "mul" itself, only for lam, app
and add.
So what is a good measure for deciding when to define a term primitive
or not?
Günther
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