Backport HW1 discussion.

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Danila Fedorin 2020-10-07 16:39:04 -07:00
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**Andrew\'s solution**:
(Hi Andrew! Long time since databases)
This solution is straightforward and simple, and is similar to
Nicholas\'. Just like all the other solutions, it pattern matches on the
arguments (instead of using \"case\" expressions), and uses the Prelude
functions. Everything\'s idiomatic, but I think that the last function
(\"pretty\") can use an improvement. Here\'s the code in question:
pretty (Mul l r) = a ++ " * " ++ b
where
a = case l of
(Add _ _) -> parens True (pretty l)
_ -> parens False (pretty l)
b = case r of
(Add _ _) -> parens True (pretty r)
_ -> parens False (pretty r)
Here, the code for \"a\" and \"b\" is almost identical, and uses an
unneeded auxiliary function. For one thing, you can merge the two
variables \"a\" and \"b\" into a function:
pretty (Mul l r) = wrap l ++ " * " ++ wrap r
where
wrap e = case e of
(Add _ _) -> parens True (pretty e)
_ -> parens False (pretty e)
Then, you can fuse the definition of \"parens\" with the definition of
\"wrap\" (passing booleans to functions is actually a code smell, see
[the boolean identity
crisis](https://programming-elm.com/blog/2019-05-20-solving-the-boolean-identity-crisis-part-1/)):
pretty (Mul l r) = wrap l ++ " * " ++ wrap r
where
parens e@(Add _ _) = "(" ++ pretty e ++ ")"
parens e = pretty e
**Nicholas\' solution**
This is another straightforward and idiomatic solution. The \"pretty\"
function is conservative, unlike Andrew\'s,  but requires little code.
**Shu-Kan\'s solution**
The parenthesis placement is a little off in this one, and it doesn\'t
use built-in functions like \'max\', which could have been used in
maxLit. It also seems to import data.Typeable, which I don\'t really see
used here. To improve it, take a look at these lines:
maxLit (Add(x)(y)) = if maxLit(x) > maxLit(y) then maxLit(x) else maxLit(y)
maxLit (Mul(x)(y)) = if maxLit(x) > maxLit(y) then maxLit(x) else maxLit(y)
In Haskell, function application is written with a space: \"f x\"
instead of \"f(x)\". Writing \"maxLit(y)\" is equivalent to writing
\"maxLit (y)\". But then, you don\'t even need parentheses!
maxLit (Add x y) = if maxLit x > maxLit y then maxLit x else maxLit y
maxLit (Mul x y) = if maxLit x > maxLit y then maxLit x else maxLit y
Finally, the \"if x \> y then x else y\" idiom is just the \"max\"
function in Haskell\'s Prelude:
maxLit (Add x y) = max (maxLit x) (maxLit y)
maxLit (Mul x y) = max (maxLit x) (maxLit y)
**My solution**
I went a weird route. For one, I created a Num instance for Expr, so
that I could write expressions as \"3\*2\" instead of \"Mul (Lit 3) (Lit
2)).  This definition is incomplete; it\'s missing the abs, negate, and
signum functions. However, it does make for funny definitions, and
handles precedence for me!
In addition, I wrote a \"fold\" function for the Expr data type, and
wrote all functions except for \"pretty\" using it. They ended up pretty
short:
leftLit = fold id const const
rightLit = fold id (flip const) (flip const)
maxLit = fold id max max
eval = fold id (+) (*)