* Proper place of abs and signum
After reflection, perhaps 'abs' and 'signum' should be names for
canonically multiplying an element by a unit, and need not necessarily
refer to ordered fields. There should also be another function
'signuminv'. They should satisfy
abs x * signum x == x
signum x * signuminv x == one
abs (k*x) == abs k * abs x
(For Real)
abs x > 0
(For Integral)
1 `mod` x = 0 ==> signum x = x
The current situation causes minor problems in the definition of the
'PID' class, which uses abs and signum to canonicalize elements.
Currently 'signum' is used some places where 'signuminv' should be
used; e.g., in the definition of 'x % y'.
This factorization seems useful in somewhat surprising generality.
However, there are useful spaces where it's not defined; e.g.,
computable reals. (abs x is computable, but signum x is not
continuous so not computable.)
* Names of floating point classes
The name 'Float' does seem to imply that the number can be represented
as an integer times an appropriate power of a base.
* GHC bugs
-fno-implicit-prelude is happy to use locally defined 'fromInteger',
but not a locally defined 'fromRational'.
* people probably interested in NumPrelude:
Mike Thomas <miketh@brisbane.paradigmgeo.com>
http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2002-February/002660.html
jan.skibinski@sympatico.ca
indexless linear algebra
blaetterrascheln@web.de
Christian Sievers <sievers@math2.nat.tu-bs.de>
Remi Turk <buran@xs4all.nl>, rturk@science.uva.nl
Ronny Wichers Schreur <R.WichersSchreur@science.ru.nl>
floorSqrt
William Lee Irwin III <wli@holomorphy.com>
ContFrac, continued fractions
Juergen Bokowski <bokowski@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de>
DMV-Nachrichten 2004/3
* RealFloat
Defines the properties of a Floating type,
thus should be named 'Floating'.
Whereas the Haskell98 'Floating' should be better named 'Transcendental'.
'atan2' is candidate for 'Transcendental' rather than 'Floating'.
The value 'eps' is missing.
Since the functions 'floatRadix', 'floatDigits', 'floatRange'
only need the type of the argument, but not its value -
isn't it better to have a record containing the properties?
This record can be requested by a method
properties :: a -> FloatingProperties
* divMod
The order of the return values of 'divMod' is very sensible:
a) The function (`divMod` n) has type a -> (b,a)
and thus fits to the State data type.
This could simplify a division algorithm.
b) The order of type a is isomorphic to the order of (b,a)
where (`divMod` n) is the isomorphism.
However for base conversions the order of the result would be better swapped.
See for instance Number.Positional.
It shall be noted, that 'div', 'mod', 'divMod' have a parameter order,
which is unfortunate for partial application.
Maybe we should turn 'div', 'mod', 'divMod' into helper functions
as needed for infix usage,
and declare different class methods of different names and swapped parameters,
say 'divide', 'modulo', 'divideModulo'.
* safeDiv
For resultant and discriminant computation,
as well as for the Newton-Girard formula
we need a division in a ring, where we know a priori,
that the division can be performed.
Is it sound to put fields like Rational, Double and so on,
into the IntegralDomain class in order to allow one implementation for all types?
Is it better to put all integral types into field class,
thus with a partial (/) function?
See also: PowerSeries
* (**)
In contrast to (^) and (^^)
it should be restricted to positive bases,
because it is ugly to do an integer test
and it will fail for floating point numbers in some cases:
Prelude> (-1)**2.000000000000001
NaN
Prelude> (-1)**2.0000000000000001
1.0
Prelude> (-1)**1e18
1.0
Prelude> (-1)**1e19
NaN
Prelude> (-1)^(10^19)
1
People are encouraged to check if they can always assert
that the exponent is an integer.
If this is the case they should use explicitly an integer type.
If they can't assert that (I assume that will only rarely be the case),
they must do this check by themselve.
* Numeric type classes for DSLs
It is very common to define instances of Numeric type classes
for wrapping operations of a foreign programming language.
Examples: CSound, SuperCollider, functionalMetaPost.
E.g. the Haskell expression '1+2'
is literally mapped to the CSound expression '1+2' instead of '3'.
This has causes several problems:
- the so defined numeric type instances do not preserve any mathematical laws,
e.g. Haskell's 'a+b' is mapped to CSound's "a+b",
and 'b+a' is mapped to "b+a",
so this (+) instance is obviously not commutative.
- It is not possible to fully define Eq and Ord (only max and min) instances
for such wrapper types.
People started custom type classes which provide methods like
(==*) :: CSndExp -> CSndExp -> CSndBool
ifGT :: CSndExp -> CSndExp -> CSndExp -> CSndExp -> CSndExp
- You can only define expressions with a constant amount of operations.
The computational effort must not depend on interim results.
Algorithms like the Euclidean algorithm cannot be run on wrapper types.
Thus we should consider custom type classes as well for Additive and Ring.
Unfortunately, this seems to be necessary also for approximate arithmetic
(floating and fixed point numbers).
Even more, the type classes for numerical wrapper types
and those for approximate arithmetic cannot be merged.
Algorithms like the Euclidean algorithm _can_ be implemented for Float and Double.
Eq and Ord can also be implemented,
although usage of Eq is discouraged, and Ord is of restricted use.
(For similar values,
the rounding errors might be greater than the difference of the values.)
* Implicit configuration
Since there are no local type class instances available
we could provide special type classes which return their results in a Reader monad.
Say
(+#) :: MonadReader m => a -> a -> m a
* PowerSeries
The transcendental power series functions can only be applied
if the coefficient type supports transcendent operations.
E.g. the logarithm of the series [1,2..]::[Rational]
could be computed without problems since (log 1 == 0).
But it fails, because Rational is no Transcendental type.
Actually, for all rational numbers different from 1,
the logarithm is not rational,
thus defining
log x = if x==1 then 0 else error "logarithm undefined for that argument"
seems to be unnecessary in general,
but makes sense for further usage in power series.
* Sample arguments
'zero' and 'one' are undefined for some types.
This indicates that the problem of implicit contextes is still not solved.
For some types, phantom types are perfectly ok for describing the context,
e.g. for positional numbers and fixed point numbers.
But they are inconvenient for residue classes and matrices.
One way out would be to provide a sample parameter,
that is, turn the functions into
zero :: a -> a
one :: a -> a
and construct zeros and ones that are compliant to the sample parameter.
However, this way we propose the "sample element" approach
as the general way to go.
But the problem applies really only to some types.
* Affine spaces:
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.libraries/3407
(Ashley Yakeley: RFC: Time Library 0.1)
http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/libraries/2005-May/003865.html
(Ashley Yakeley: Difference Argument Order)
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/torsors.html
(Is "torsor" closer to what we want to describe?)
* Vector type constructors:
Currently we model vector spaces with a multi-parameter type class.
It has the advantage, that it can be used very flexible for existing types.
E.g. any nesting of tuples types is automatically a vector type
if the tuple type is a VectorSpace instance.
But it has several disadvantages:
- Type inference works badly.
If in a chain of vector operations,
there is some undetermined type,
the type checker will confront you type error messages
containing type variables that you never wrote down somewhere.
- It is not possible to make a complex number
a scalar type with respect to some vector type,
because Complex is a composed type.
- You have to declare Module instances for all atomic types,
which essentially copy the Ring instances.
You may find it useful to implement certain functions
both for Modules and for Scalars.
E.g. the polynomial evaluation is sensible and useful
for vector valued coefficients (e.g. Matrix series),
but more often polynomials with scalar coefficients are needed.
hornerScalar :: Ring a => [a] -> a -> a
hornerVector :: VectorSpace a v => [v] -> a -> v
You might try to unify both versions by making
(VectorSpace a a) a requirement of (Ring a).
However as said above, Complex can't be made an instance of VectorSpace
(more precisely VectorSpace (Complex a) (Complex a) is not possible.)
I also hesitate to let the single parameter type class Ring
depend on the multi-parameter type class VectorSpace.
There is a way out: A Vector type constructor class.
class Vector v where
scale :: Additive.C a => a -> v a -> v a
In contrast to multi-parameter VectorSpace,
we cannot force that 'v a' is also a method of Additive.
We cannot restrict the vector element types by a class constraint,
but the routines acting on Vector containers can have these restrictions.
That is, the List type constructor is generally a Vector constructor,
although the particular String type is not a vector.
Since the multi-parameter approach sometimes requires
two versions of a function, the type constructor approach is not worse.
hornerScalar :: Ring a => [a] -> a -> a
hornerVector :: (Ring a, Vector v) => [v a] -> a -> v a
Advantages:
- scale :: (Complex Double) -> [Complex Double] -> [Complex Double]
is possible
- type inference works well
Disadvantanges:
- The same type cannot be both scalar and vector.
In order to achieve this,
one part has to be turned into a singleton vector.
Is this really a disadvantage or just a kind of more type safety?
- The methods from Additive ((+), zero)
must be added to the Vector class.
A vectorial function cannot assert by its signature
that the particular vector type is Additive.
- The vector methods must live with the constraints on the scalar type
as given in the Vector class declaration.
Say, e.g. a Vector implementation based on Data.Map
may want to remove zero elements.
This requires a test against zero, that is a Eq or ZeroTestable instance.
You cannot add these constraints.
Interestingly, this is the approach, I started on, in the end of 2004-03.
* Complex numbers
The module looks horrible because auxiliary type classes are introduced
in order to allow optimized version for floating point numbers.
Should we better split the module into an algebraic Complex type
and a floating point Complex type?
* ToDo:
- check licences
- ZeroTestable.isZero -> Zero.query
- Units.isUnit -> Unit.query
- TeX output class (configuration of operator precedences)
* ToDo: Classes
- Hilbert space (scalar product)
- Affine space
* ToDo: Types
- Partial Fractions:
- introduce Indexable type class for allowing partial fractions of polynomials
- example decomposition (e.g. implemented in test suite)
(n-2)*(n+2)/((n-4)*n*(n+4))
- Hypercomplex numbers: Octonions
- matrices, vectors
- conversion of complex and quaternions to real matrices
- peano numbers, cardinals
- continued fractions and approximations of fractions
- Vector type constructor class,
with Singleton, Pair, Triple, Quadruple, (->), [] as instances
Henning's notes:
(mod a 0) should be undefined,
because the remainder should satisfy
(y >=0 ==> 0 <= mod x y && mod x y < y)
splitFraction replaces properFraction
It does now round towards minus infinity,
I can't remember that I needed the behavior of Prelude.properFraction,
namely rounding towards zero, in the past, at all.
I would even vote for removing 'quot' and 'rem'
because people tend to use them in many cases where 'div' and 'mod'
are the better choice.
A remainder class type like the one modulo (2*pi)
would solve ambiguities in inverse trigonometric functions,
problem: complex trigonometric and exponential function.
Alternatively 'log' could return a list of possible solutions.
Powers are still problematic.
There should be several types of powers,
each of which should be unique or choose some natural result.
Powers of two complex number are rarely needed
and often lead to unexpected results, e.g. discontinuous functions.
(E.g. the Cauchy wavelet.)
Interesting types of powers and suggested power notation:
anything ^ cardinal
fractional ^- integer
algebraic ^/ rational (list of powers)
positive real (transcendent) ^? anything (via exponential series)
In my opinion it's important to put not too much meanings in one symbol,
e.g. (*) can already be redefined in quite exotic ways,
but the equal type of the operands should be the minimum.
So I find it good to have a different operator (*>)
for the multiplication of scalar and vector,
and very similar an add operation
for durations and absolute times (say Minutes 12 +> Time 12 04 53) or
temperature differences and absolute temperatures (Kelvin 10 +> DegreeCelcius 43) or
tone intervals and absolute pitches (say 3 +> Pitch C 1)
Haskell should distinguish between numeric machine constants (say 2#)
and polymorphic constants (say 2 = fromMachineInt 2#),
this would avoid cycles
Module is named Algebra.Module
since there might be many people
who want to define some type named Module.
the prop_* routines in NumExtras could be rewritten as simplification rules for GHC,
though they should be disabled by default,
because the rules doesn't always apply
due to overflows and rounding.
How can one handle errors in a computation?
say, vectors mismatch,
there is an overflow,
a sum of two physical values with different units fails
(I have already implemented modules for dealing with units) etc.
Making the operations undefined for these cases
is ok if the programmer has control over the operands.
But if the values are given by the user
the programmer might want to obtain something
from which he can build a user friendly error message,
say, "the values 1m and 2s can't be added:
expression 1m+2s, sub-expression of ..."
Examples for implicit configuration
residue classes: modulus
matrix computation: matrix size
positional numbers: base
fixed point numbers: position of the dot