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Are you saying that you consider strings in Haskell to be a primitive?

• armchairhacker 5y ago
  No, Haskell is weird since a string is [Char]. If it was it’s own value, yes. The languages i’ve written are pretty basic. e.g. the data types might be - Number - String - True, false, null - Array of values - Record of fields (key + value) - Variant of options (key + value) So the distinction is clearer.
  • masklinn 5y ago
    > No, Haskell is weird since a string is [Char]. I can think of various langages where string is not a built-in, but i can’t think of a langage where string is not some sort of sequence, not just in its implementation but in its interface. The definition also breaks down quickly e.g. is a complex a primitive? If not because they have real and imaginary parts, why are floats which have a mantissa and an exponent? And what about functions? What even is a child? Are value-less sum types primitives but valued ones not? More importantly, how does it matter? What does the distinction you draw provide that is useful?