月份：2016年2月

A function is called polymorphic (“of many forms”) if its type contains one or more type variables. E.g.: length :: [a] -> Int

A polymorphic function is called overloaded if its type contains one or more class constraints. E.g.: (+) :: Num a => a -> a -> a.

Because Haskell is a purely functional language, all computations are done via the evaluation of expressions (syntactic terms) to yield values (abstract entities that we regard as answers). Every value has an associated type. (Intuitively, we can think of types as sets of values.) Examples of expressions include atomic values such as the integer 5, the character ‘a’, and the function \x -> x+1, as well as structured values such as the list [1,2,3] and the pair (‘b’,4).

Just as expressions denote values, type expressions are syntactic terms that denote type values (or just types). Examples of type expressions include the atomic types Integer (infinite-precision integers), Char (characters), Integer->Integer (functions mapping Integer to Integer), as well as the structured types [Integer] (homogeneous lists of integers) and (Char,Integer) (character, integer pairs).

All Haskell values are “first-class”—they may be passed as arguments to functions, returned as results, placed in data structures, etc. Haskell types, on the other hand, are not first-class. Types in a sense describe values, and the association of a value with its type is called a typing. Using the examples of values and types above, we write typings as follows:

                      5  :: Integer
                     'a' :: Char
                     inc :: Integer -> Integer
                 [1,2,3] :: [Integer]
                 ('b',4) :: (Char,Integer)

The “::” can be read “has type.”

Haskell是一门纯函数式编程语言，所有的计算都是通过对表达式的求值完成的。每个值（value）都有一个相关的类型（type），也可以把类型看做是值的集合。在Haskell中，所有的值都是first-class，而类型却不是。类型和值的集合称之为typing：

5  :: Integer

Currying定义如下：

Currying is the process of transforming a function that takes multiple arguments into a function that takes just a single argument and returns another function if any arguments are still needed.

Haskell中所有函数都可以认为是curried，即函数只包含一个参数。在Haskell类型表示中，->是右相关的，因此f :: a -> b -> c实际上也是f :: a -> ( b -> c )，所以f x y即(f x) y。

参考资料：
Currying。

下面参考自Curried functions：

Every function in Haskell officially only takes one parameter. So how is it possible that we defined and used several functions that take more than one parameter so far? Well, it’s a clever trick! All the functions that accepted several parameters so far have been curried functions.

Putting a space between two things is simply function application. The space is sort of like an operator and it has the highest precedence.

So how is that beneficial to us? Simply speaking, if we call a function with too few parameters, we get back a partially applied function, meaning a function that takes as many parameters as we left out. Using partial application (calling functions with too few parameters, if you will) is a neat way to create functions on the fly so we can pass them to another function or to seed them with some data.

关于curry infix function（需要加括号）：

Infix functions can also be partially applied by using sections. To section an infix function, simply surround it with parentheses and only supply a parameter on one side. That creates a function that takes one parameter and then applies it to the side that’s missing an operand. An insultingly trivial function:

divideByTen :: (Floating a) => a -> a  
divideByTen = (/10) 

The only special thing about sections is using -. From the definition of sections, (-4) would result in a function that takes a number and subtracts 4 from it. However, for convenience, (-4) means minus four. So if you want to make a function that subtracts 4 from the number it gets as a parameter, partially apply the subtract function like so: (subtract 4).

当需要显示地指定表达式类型时，可以使用type annotaion，即在表达式后面加上::和需要指定的类型。举例如下：

> :type 1 :: Int
1 :: Int :: Int

可以看到1被强制指定为Int类型。Type annotation也可以用来获得Int等类型的边界值：

> minBound :: Int
-9223372036854775808
> maxBound :: Int
9223372036854775807

参考资料：
Lecture Notes on Haskell Programming。