The Transient monad

Concerning Stable Names http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/6.10.4/html/libraries/base/System-Mem-StableName.html

I did not test fully my proposal, and I´m thinking aloud, Just to inspire others and fish some ideas: look at the type:

makeStableName :: a -> IO (StableName a) The IO in makeStableName suggest more side effects than the call really do. But still it isn't pure. For calls such are makeStableName that gives a different result the FIRST time they are called but return the same result every time in the same session, I suggest to use a Transient monad: makeStableName :: a -> Transient (StableName a) The key here is to maintain the programmer aware that it is not pure, but there are no IO and that the results have no meaning from session to session. Instance Monad Transient where Transient x ↠ f = f x return x = Transient x We can Transient`ize IO calls by means of an implicit memoization: liftT:: IO a -> Transient a liftT= liftT2=.... liftT3=.... Memorization then is embedded in the monad transformation.

This may be more elegant than IO plus unsafePerformIO and is more informative for the programmer. Instead of unsafePerformIO, we can use: unsafePurifyTransient :: Transient a -> a unsafePurifyTransient (Transient x) = x for the inherently transient calls

The transition form IO to pure can be done in two steps trough Transient: A safer version of unsafePerformIO using implicit memoization could be:

unsafePerformIOT :: IO a -> a unsafePerformIOT = unsafePurifyTransient . liftT unsafePerformIOT guarantee that it returns the same value in the same session

Twan van Laarhoven objected that makeStableName return different values before and after evaluation of an expression. True, makeStableName does not return the same value ever. This is the second time that I forget that. Still I think that Transient or something similar is worth the pain for making a less unsafe transition from IO to pure trough memoization, That was my goal.

For this reason, I want something more narrow than IO to make the programmer aware of the higuer level of safety, rather than something more general.

Stable names are good for memoization however, since memoization of IO procedures can be implemente by hashing their stable names. I think that it is possible to force the evaluation of an expression, then it is possible to have a Transient version of makeStableName.

Transient means that something has been cached and fixed. This can be generalized also for temporary valid computations:

data Time= Session | Time Integer

data Transient a= Trans (Time, a)

instance Monad Transient where

Trans( t,x) ↠ f =

let Trans (t2, y) = f x

in Trans ((min1 t t2) , y)

return x = Trans (Session, x)

min1 :: Time → Time → Time

min1 Session x= x

min1 x Session= x

min1 (Time x) (Time y)=Time $ min x y

This monad will calculate the time that the result remain valid given the time validity of each computation involved.

Well, more fine calculation is needed since the computation takes time too. Perhaps the bind operation can abort the compuitation and send an error when the time is zero. this can be catched to restart the computation again or whatever else.