Cons/lists don't have to be involved at all: a Set type could be made to work for many applications.
I've observed several smart people struggling at the outset with the connection between recursively defined lists and nondeterminism in Haskell. It's not uncommon for people to assume that there is some essential connection between the two, because that's what "list monad" seems to suggest. In fact any collection type would do.
I've observed several smart people struggling at the outset with the connection between recursively defined lists and nondeterminism in Haskell. It's not uncommon for people to assume that there is some essential connection between the two, because that's what "list monad" seems to suggest. In fact any collection type would do.