lens-simple-0.1.0.6: lens-simple.cabal
name: lens-simple
version: 0.1.0.6
synopsis: simplified import of elementary lens-family combinators
description: This module, <http://hackage.haskell.org/package/lens-simple/docs/Lens-Simple.html Lens.Simple>,
just re-exports the main modules from Russell O\'Connor's
<http://hackage.haskell.org/package/lens-family lens-family>
package, the original <http://r6.ca/blog/20120623T104901Z.html van Laarhoven lens> library.
@Lens.Simple@ also re-exports @makeLenses@ and
other TH incantations from Dan Burton's associated
<http://hackage.haskell.org/package/lens-family-th lens-family-th>.
The idea is just to make a sort of low-powered, minimal-dependency @lens-family@ equivalent of
the 800 lb gorilla of lens library imports:
.
> import Control.Lens
.
to wit, the elegant and spritely:
.
> import Lens.Simple
.
Check it out, it's even one character shorter!
.
If you are unfamiliar with the use of what O'Connor calls van Laarhoven
lenses, you might take a
look at the excellent <http://www.serpentine.com/wreq/tutorial.html tutorial>
for the <http://hackage.haskell.org/package/wreq wreq>
library. All of the tutorial material will compile if you replace
@import Control.Lens@ with the suave @import Lens.Simple@.
The error messages you get might be a little less opaque. But
the point is basically academic, of course: you have already weighed down your
sandbox with the @lens@ library by installing @wreq@ and if you get
any deeper into @wreq@ you will need it.
.
As another illustration of the simplicity of the
fundamental van Laarhoven lens combinators, note that the gloss
<https://github.com/michaelt/lens-family-simple/blob/master/examples/Pong.hs pong example>
from the @lens@ library examples directory requires only this
abbreviating change of imports.
If you care to make that program more complicated,
you might at some point need
the unfathomably more sophisticated material in @Control.Lens@.
Within its more limited sphere, @lens-family@ accords as
far as possible with @lens@, so this switch
will often be all that is necessary to begin using them.
.
This module was originally intended to simplify the use of packages that
follow the original promise of the van Laarhoven lenses. Correct practice is
to export lenses without depending on a lens-library, where possible;
in basic cases these use just familiar @Prelude@ types.
Examples of best practices in this respect are
<http://hackage.haskell.org/package/pipes-bytestring pipes-bytestring>
and <http://hackage.haskell.org/package/pipes-group pipes-group>.
Because of the heavily monadic character of those libraries, the
extra material in @Control.Lens@ is rarely of use anyway; one sticks largely
to @view\/(^.)@, @set\/(.~)@, @over\/(%~)@ and @zoom@.
.
Note that many of the other lenses and combinators are a bit more
specialized than their @Control.Lens@ equivalents:
for example, _1 and _2 are here
familiarly specialized to act just on real Haskell
pairs. With the loss of abstraction we also of course
lose the concomitant opaque error messages
about @Field1 s t a b@ etc.
homepage: https://github.com/michaelt/lens-simple
license: BSD3
license-file: LICENSE
author: michaelt
maintainer: what_is_it_to_do_anything@yahoo.com
copyright: 2012, 2013, 2014 Russell O'Connor; 2015 Michael Thompson
category: Lenses
build-type: Simple
extra-source-files: README.md, changelog
cabal-version: >=1.10
source-repository head
type: git
location: https://github.com/michaelt/lens-simple
library
exposed-modules: Lens.Simple
build-depends: base == 4.*
, transformers >= 0.2.0 && < 5
, mtl >=2.1 && <2.3
, lens-family == 1.2.*
, lens-family-core == 1.2.*
, lens-family-th == 0.4.*
default-language: Haskell2010