[bitc-dev] monads

[James Graves]

I am not a Haskell expert, but I do have several comments.

1) Monads have been added onto other languages.  Particularly functional 
languages like Ocaml.  So it may be possible to add if later if desired. 
  Though it can be an advantage getting this in early the programming 
language lifecycle, so it becomes standard.

2) I didn't think the coding style of a typical Haskell program matched 
the style encouraged by BitC.  I'm talking about stuff like currying, 
which is commonly used.

3) I'd think that translating lazy and pure code to strict would be 
difficult in many cases.  More like writing completely new code.

4) Monads are useful when it comes to analysis of program code, formally 
or informally.  Their use, especially in Haskell, forces the programmer 
to directly and explicitly reason about mutable state.  It is "all right 
there" in terms of seeing who is changing what.  There are no hidden 
little side effects in an innocuous function named 
"retrieve_calculated_result", for example.

James