I hit a roadblock trying to understand linear types, because I couldn't figure out what is meant to "use" a variable. I eventually think I figured it out, by reading "Linear types can change the world!", but it was not easy to do so. I think a better description of what "use" means would be very helpful for those unfamiliar with linear types, so I took a stab at it. Hope it helps.
Following a fairly detailed discussion on slack, the feeling is
generally that it's better to have a single interface. While precision
is nice, it doesn't appear to buy us anything here. If that turns out to
be wrong, or limiting somehow, we can revisit it later. Also:
- it's easier for backend authors if the type of IO operations is
slightly less restrictive. For example, if it's in HasIO, that limits
alternative implementations, which might be awkward for some
alternative back ends.
- it's one less extra detail to learn. This is minor, but there needs to
be a clear advantage if there's more detail to learn.
- It is difficult to think of an underlying type that can't have a Monad
instance (I have personally never encountered one - if they turns out
to exist, again, we can revisit!)
This is mostly to make it easier to write linear function types without
having to invent names for everything, which might be noisy. Also it
improves the display of linear function types when the name isn't used
in the scope.
