List of boilerplate to get rid of or simplify

StevenWInfo / haskell-soda

Haskell bindings for the Socrata Open Data API

MIT License

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List of boilerplate to get rid of or simplify #26

Open StevenWInfo opened 7 years ago

StevenWInfo commented 7 years ago

I don't know if getting rid of some or any of the following is possible, but I'd like to try.

Having to put SodaVal on all of the SODA values.
Having to put type declarations on columns
- Have to specify type somehow, but a function that takes a Proxy a value or something like that could make it simpler.
Putting Just on all of the query record field values.
Having to put Expr on a lot of things
Putting SodaNum and Money constructors around the respective types.
- I could make money just be a type synonym for integers, which represent cents.
- Could making Double and SodaNum be the same at the Haskell level be alright? There's not really anything I can think of at the SODA level that would fail if given the other datatype.

StevenWInfo commented 7 years ago

Some possible ways to reduce the boilerplate are with Haskell generics, template Haskell, and/or type families using type functions. There's also the possibilities that I'm overlooking simpler ways as well. I'm not sure how realistic any of these methods are though.

StevenWInfo commented 7 years ago

Getting stuff out of the response is a little wordier than I would like as well. I could probably make some utility functions that sum up some of the most common ways of extracting values out of the response. For example, functions that already get values out of ResponseType, and maybe something that combines those with the lookup function.

StevenWInfo commented 7 years ago

I've also been thinking about having a smart constructor for Column types that also takes in a Proxy a value to specify the column's type as a. It wouldn't necessarily reduce the amount of boilerplate, but it might be a bit nicer than adding type declarations, especially if you're trying to create the column in line.

StevenWInfo commented 7 years ago

I think I've figured out how to get rid of using SodaVal all over the place using type families. I just need to code it up and test it.

StevenWInfo commented 7 years ago

Perhaps the emptyQuery should just have default values instead of being Maybe a values. It creates some boilerplate for no significant benefit since they are interpreted as default values on the SODA side.