Why constraints on data are a bad thing?

Question

I know this question has been asked and answered lots of times but I still don't really understand why putting constraints on a data type is a bad thing.

For example, let's take Data.Map k a. All of the useful functions involving a Map need an Ord k constraint. So there is an implicit constraint on the definition of Data.Map. Why is it better to keep it implicit instead of letting the compiler and programmers know that Data.Map needs an orderable key.

Also, specifying a final type in a type declaration is something common, and one can see it as a way of "super" constraining a data type.

For example, I can write

data User = User { name :: String }

and that's acceptable. However is that not a constrained version of

data User' s = User' { name :: s }

After all 99% of the functions I'll write for the User type don't need a String and the few which will would probably only need s to be IsString and Show.

So, why is the lax version of User considered bad:

data (IsString s, Show s, ...) => User'' { name :: s }

while both User and User' are considered good?

I'm asking this, because lots of the time, I feel I'm unnecessarily narrowing my data (or even function) definitions, just to not have to propagate constraints.

Update

As far as I understand, data type constraints only apply to the constructor and don't propagate. So my question is then, why do data type constraints not work as expected (and propagate)? It's an extension anyway, so why not have a new extension doing data properly, if it was considered useful by the community?

Answer 1

TL;DR:
Use GADTs to provide implicit data contexts.
Don't use any kind of data constraint if you could do with Functor instances etc.
Map's too old to change to a GADT anyway. Scroll to the bottom if you want to see the User implementation with GADTs

---

Let's use a case study of a Bag where all we care about is how many times something is in it. (Like an unordered sequence. We nearly always need an Eq constraint to do anything useful with it.

I'll use the inefficient list implementation so as not to muddy the waters over the Data.Map issue.

GADTs - the solution to the data constraint "problem"

The easy way to do what you're after is to use a GADT:

Notice below how the Eq constraint not only forces you to use types with an Eq instance when making GADTBags, it provides that instance implicitly wherever the GADTBag constructor appears. That's why count doesn't need an Eq context, whereas countV2 does - it doesn't use the constructor:

{-# LANGUAGE GADTs #-}

data GADTBag a where
   GADTBag :: Eq a => [a] -> GADTBag a
unGADTBag (GADTBag xs) = xs

instance Show a => Show (GADTBag a) where
  showsPrec i (GADTBag xs) = showParen (i>9) (("GADTBag " ++ show xs) ++)

count :: a -> GADTBag a -> Int -- no Eq here
count a (GADTBag xs) = length.filter (==a) $ xs  -- but == here

countV2 a = length.filter (==a).unGADTBag

size :: GADTBag a -> Int
size (GADTBag xs) = length xs

ghci> count 'l' (GADTBag "Hello")
2
ghci> :t countV2
countV2 :: Eq a => a -> GADTBag a -> Int

Now we didn't need the Eq constraint when we found the total size of the bag, but it didn't clutter up our definition anyway. (We could have used size = length . unGADTBag just as well.)

Now lets make a functor:

instance Functor GADTBag where
  fmap f (GADTBag xs) = GADTBag (map f xs)

oops!

DataConstraints_so.lhs:49:30:
    Could not deduce (Eq b) arising from a use of `GADTBag'
    from the context (Eq a)

That's unfixable (with the standard Functor class) because I can't restrict the type of fmap, but need to for the new list.

Data Constraint version

Can we do as you asked? Well, yes, except that you have to keep repeating the Eq constraint wherever you use the constructor:

{-# LANGUAGE DatatypeContexts #-}

data Eq a => EqBag a = EqBag {unEqBag :: [a]}
  deriving Show

count' a (EqBag xs) = length.filter (==a) $ xs
size' (EqBag xs) = length xs   -- Note: doesn't use (==) at all

Let's go to ghci to find out some less pretty things:

ghci> :so DataConstraints
DataConstraints_so.lhs:1:19: Warning:
    -XDatatypeContexts is deprecated: It was widely considered a misfeature, 
    and has been removed from the Haskell language.
[1 of 1] Compiling Main             ( DataConstraints_so.lhs, interpreted )
Ok, modules loaded: Main.
ghci> :t count
count :: a -> GADTBag a -> Int
ghci> :t count'
count' :: Eq a => a -> EqBag a -> Int
ghci> :t size
size :: GADTBag a -> Int
ghci> :t size'
size' :: Eq a => EqBag a -> Int
ghci> 

So our EqBag count' function requires an Eq constraint, which I think is perfectly reasonable, but our size' function also requires one, which is less pretty. This is because the type of the EqBag constructor is EqBag :: Eq a => [a] -> EqBag a, and this constraint must be added every time.

We can't make a functor here either:

instance Functor EqBag where
   fmap f (EqBag xs) = EqBag (map f xs)

for exactly the same reason as with the GADTBag

Constraintless bags

data ListBag a = ListBag {unListBag :: [a]}
  deriving Show
count'' a = length . filter (==a) . unListBag
size'' = length . unListBag

instance Functor ListBag where
   fmap f (ListBag xs) = ListBag (map f xs)

Now the types of count'' and show'' are exactly as we expect, and we can use standard constructor classes like Functor:

ghci> :t count''
count'' :: Eq a => a -> ListBag a -> Int
ghci> :t size''
size'' :: ListBag a -> Int
ghci> fmap (Data.Char.ord) (ListBag "hello")
ListBag {unListBag = [104,101,108,108,111]}
ghci> 

Comparison and conclusions

The GADTs version automagically propogates the Eq constraint everywhere the constructor is used. The type checker can rely on there being an Eq instance, because you can't use the constructor for a non-Eq type.

The DatatypeContexts version forces the programmer to manually propogate the Eq constraint, which is fine by me if you want it, but is deprecated because it doesn't give you anything more than the GADT one does and was seen by many as pointless and annoying.

The unconstrained version is good because it doesn't prevent you from making Functor, Monad etc instances. The constraints are written exactly when they're needed, no more or less. Data.Map uses the unconstrained version partly because unconstrained is generally seen as most flexible, but also partly because it predates GADTs by some margin, and there needs to be a compelling reason to potentially break existing code.

What about your excellent User example?

I think that's a great example of a one-purpose data type that benefits from a constraint on the type, and I'd advise you to use a GADT to implement it.

(That said, sometimes I have a one-purpose data type and end up making it unconstrainedly polymorphic just because I love to use Functor (and Applicative), and would rather use fmap than mapBag because I feel it's clearer.)

{-# LANGUAGE GADTs #-}
import Data.String

data User s where 
   User :: (IsString s, Show s) => s -> User s

name :: User s -> s
name (User s) = s

instance Show (User s) where  -- cool, no Show context
  showsPrec i (User s) = showParen (i>9) (("User " ++ show s) ++)

instance (IsString s, Show s) => IsString (User s) where
  fromString = User . fromString

Notice since fromString does construct a value of type User a, we need the context explicitly. After all, we composed with the constructor User :: (IsString s, Show s) => s -> User s. The User constructor removes the need for an explicit context when we pattern match (destruct), becuase it already enforced the constraint when we used it as a constructor.

We didn't need the Show context in the Show instance because we used (User s) on the left hand side in a pattern match.

Answer 2

Constraints

The problem is that constraints are not a property of the data type, but of the algorithm/function that operates on them. Different functions might need different and unique constraints.

A Box example

As an example, let's assume we want to create a container called Box which contains only 2 values.

data Box a = Box a a

We want it to:

• be showable
• allow the sorting of the two elements via sort

Does it make sense to apply the constraint of both Ord and Show on the data type? No, because the data type in itself could be only shown or only sorted and therefore the constraints are related to its use, not it's definition.

instance (Show a) => Show (Box a) where
    show (Box a b) = concat ["'", show a, ", ", show b, "'"]

instance (Ord a) => Ord (Box a) where
    compare (Box a b) (Box c d) =
        let ca = compare a c
            cb = compare b d
        in if ca /= EQ then ca else cb

The Data.Map case

Data.Map's Ord constraints on the type is really needed only when we have > 1 elements in the container. Otherwise the container is usable even without an Ord key. For example, this algorithm:

transf :: Map NonOrd Int -> Map NonOrd Int
transf x = 
    if Map.null x
        then Map.singleton NonOrdA 1
        else x

Live demo

works just fine without the Ord constraint and always produce a non empty map.

Answer 3

Using DataTypeContexts reduces the number of programs you can write. If most of those illegal programs are nonsense, you might say it's worth the runtime cost associated with ghc passing in a type class dictionary that isn't used. For example, if we had

data Ord k => MapDTC k a

then @jefffrey's transf is rejected. But we should probably have transf _ = return (NonOrdA, 1) instead.

In some sense the context is documentation that says "every Map must have ordered keys". If you look at all of the functions in Data.Map you'll get a similar conclusion "every useful Map has ordered keys". While you can create maps with unordered keys using

mapKeysMonotonic :: (k1 -> k2) -> Map k1 a -> Map k2 a
singleton :: k2 a -> Map k2 a

But the moment you try to do anything useful with them, you'll wind up with No instance for Ord k2 somewhat later.