Re: Narrowing vs. rewriting

From: Sergio Antoy <antoy_at_cs.pdx.edu>
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:18:17 -0700

Hi Phil,

> I agree with you that your Curry program is more declarative than
> my Haskell, but so what? I think you've missed my point. No example
> that reduces four lines to two will be convincing, unless it scales up
> to reduce forty lines to twenty, and four thousand to two thousand.
> Your example seems to me too specialised to scale well. I want killer
> apps, not toy apps.

No, I did not miss your point. I was still trying to answer the
question, raised by John, whether there is any real need for
narrowwing or rewriting suffices. Indeed this is the subject of
your message. I answered "YES" and I supported my answer as well
as I could. If we all agree on my answer, we made a tiny step
forward. It would be encouraging. If someone does not agree that
it is a good thing to have narrowing in the language, she should
say so and argue why. And I am open to be convinced of this
viewpoint as well.

Now, you raised another point, much more important than the point
that I was still trying to address. And I have not yet addressed
your point, which certainly deserve much more attention. Before
doing that, I think that we should try to answer John's question.
If we cannot solve his point in a reasonable time and with a
reasonably large consensus, I would have no hope to make any
progress on the much more important point that you raised and that
deserve a clear, thorough, and definitive answer. And I am very
glad that you raised it.

Happy Independence Day,
Sergio
Received on Fr Jul 04 1997 - 01:21:00 CEST