Timeline for What's the benefit of the Nothing constructor in Haskell?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
15 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 21, 2012 at 7:02 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackProgrammer/status/271146703925673984 | ||
| Nov 20, 2012 at 20:53 | vote | accept | Hex Bob-omb | ||
| Nov 20, 2012 at 20:20 | answer | added | Andres F. | timeline score: 15 | |
| Nov 20, 2012 at 20:12 | comment | added | Giorgio | I agree with sepp2k. Just to add a few ideas: Languages that support option types also support exceptions to signal real errors. Nothing indicates the successful computation of a result. Example: if you look up a customer in a database you return Nothing if you do not find the customer, you throw an exception if there is not database connection. | |
| Nov 20, 2012 at 20:10 | comment | added | Giorgio | @sepp2k: Excuse me, I have misread your comment (would instead of wouldn't). I will correct my comment. | |
| Nov 20, 2012 at 19:59 | comment | added | sepp2k | @Giorgio How does any of what you just said contradict what I said? | |
| Nov 20, 2012 at 19:45 | comment | added | sepp2k | I wouldn't really say that Nothing is a silent fail. Unlike null in other languages, functions that may return Nothing will say so in their type and the type system will force you to handle the possibility of Nothing in some way. | |
| Nov 20, 2012 at 19:34 | vote | accept | Hex Bob-omb | ||
| Nov 20, 2012 at 20:53 | |||||
| Nov 20, 2012 at 19:32 | comment | added | user7043 | @HexBob-omb programmers.stackexchange.com/search?q=maybe and stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/maybe for starters. There are probably other searches that yield even more. | |
| Nov 20, 2012 at 19:31 | answer | added | Telastyn | timeline score: 13 | |
| Nov 20, 2012 at 19:30 | comment | added | Giorgio | @Hex Bob-omb: You throw an error when you encounter one. Nothing indicates one possible result of a partial function. Nothing does not indicate an error but the correct result of a computation. | |
| Nov 20, 2012 at 19:29 | comment | added | Hex Bob-omb | I don't know if it is. I didn't couldn't find any threads that answered my question. | |
| Nov 20, 2012 at 19:28 | review | First posts | |||
| Nov 20, 2012 at 19:35 | |||||
| Nov 20, 2012 at 19:22 | comment | added | user7043 | There are a number of questions (both here and on SO) concerning the advantages of option types. How does your question differ from all of them? | |
| Nov 20, 2012 at 19:11 | history | asked | Hex Bob-omb | CC BY-SA 3.0 |