you know Hoogle – don’t you?

In case you don’t Hoogle is a search-engine where you can look for Haskell functions. You can use with it’s web-interface and there are a couple of plugins (for GHCi, etc.)

The great thing is: not only can you search by name or Module – you can even search by type!

Well why would that be useful?

I just forgot the name for the function that gives you the Unicode-Index for a character – but of course the type of this function should be $$ Char –> Int $$

So enter “Char –> Int” into Hoogle and voila: the second found function is the one I forgot!

This one is so good I want something similar for .net … but wait, with the weak type-system and cluttered side-effects that might be not so useful after all (search for “XYZ –> ()”? … stupid thing I want this Update-Db thingy not the Draw-to-Screen … stupid OOP )