Universal container conversion? if from Foldable to Alternative?

Question

For instance Alternative [], (<|>) = (++). So I regarded (<|>) as some kind of splicer, resulting in seemingly almost-universal container converter:

-- (<|>) = generalization of (++)

(<|) :: Alternative f => x -> f x -> f x
x <| xs = pure x <|> xs

conv :: (Foldable t, Alternative f) => t x -> f x
conv = foldr (<|) empty

Indeed, I was able to generalize all functions from Data.List, here's some:

-- fmap = generalization of map

reverse :: (Foldable t, Alternative f) => t a -> f a
reverse = getAlt . getDual . foldMap (Dual . Alt . pure)

-- asum = generalization of concat

asumMap :: (Foldable t, Alternative f) => (a -> f b) -> t a -> f b -- generalization of concatMap
asumMap f = getAlt . foldMap (Alt . f)

splitAt :: (Foldable t, Alternative f, Alternative g) => Int -> t a -> (f a, g a)
splitAt n xs = let (_,fs,gs) = foldl' (\(i,z1,z2) x -> if 0 < i then (i-1,z1 . (x <|),z2) else (0,z1,z2 . (x <|))) (n,id,id) xs in (fs empty,gs empty)

Also, this analogy makes some interesting new instances, such as a working applicative functor for functor sums (Data.Functor.Sum):

instance (Foldable f, Applicative f, Alternative g) => Applicative (Sum f g) where
    pure = InL . pure
    InL f <*> InL x = InL (f <*> x)
    InL f <*> InR x = InR (conv f <*> x)
    InR f <*> InL x = InR (f <*> conv x)
    InR f <*> InR x = InR (f <*> x)

instance (Foldable f, Applicative f, Alternative g) => Alternative (Sum f g) where
    empty = InR empty
    InL x <|> _ = InL x
    InR _ <|> InL y = InL y
    InR x <|> InR y = InR (x <|> y)

Is it actually good idea to generalize all functions and make new instances with this analogy, especially for list operations?

EDIT: I'm especially concerned about ambiguous return type. For normal list operations, the return type is deducible from its argument types. But the "universal" version is not, as the return type must be explicitly specified. Is this problem severe enough to regard the analogy dangerous? (Or is there any other problem?)

EDIT 2: If I'm understanding the behavior of foldl' exactly, the time complexity of universal splitAt (shown above) must be Θ(length xs), as foldl' is strict for every elements, right? If yes, that must be a problem, as it's inferior to the regular version's Θ(min n (length xs)).

Answer 1

It is not always a good idea to make functions as polymorphic as theoretically possible, in particular not function arguments. As a rule of thumb: make function results as polymorphic as possible. (Often, the arguments will then already contain some type variables that are used in the result.) Only if you have a particular reason, also give the arguments extra polymorphism.

The reason being: if everything is polymorphic, the compiler has no hints as to what concrete types to choose. Polymorphic results/values are usually ok, because these will generally be bound directly or indirectly to some top-level definition which has an explicit signature, but polymorphic arguments will often only be filled with literals (number literals are polymorphic in Haskell, and strings/lists can be too) or other polymorphic values, so you end up having to type out lots of explicit local signatures, which tends to be more awkward than having to occasionally toss in an explicit conversion function because something is not polymorphic enough.

This idea with Foldable->Alternative specifically has another problem that the Alternative class is rather frowned upon, having no very solid mathematical backing. It's basically the class of applicative functors which for every instantiation give rise to a Monoid. Well, that can also be expressed directly, by demanding Monoid itself. The “universal container conversion function” thus already exists, it is foldMap pure.