I'm writing some code (a Metropolis-Hastings MCMC sampler) that will use a random number generator, and modify an array and potentially other structures based on this.
My initial idea was to use the ST monad, so that I could use ST arrays and the mersenne-random-pure64 package, keeping the PureMT generator as part of the state.
However I want to be able to split off some of the work into separate helper functions (e.g to sample a random integer in a given range, to update the array structure, and potentially more complicated things). To do this, I think I would need to pass the references to the PureMT gen and the array to all the functions, which could quickly become very ugly if I need to store more state.
My instinct is to group all of the state into a single data type that I can access anywhere, as I would using the State monad by defining a new datatype, but I don't know if that is possible with the ST monad, or the right way to go about it.
Are there any nice patterns for doing this sort of thing? I want to keep things as general as possible because I will probably need to add extra state and build more monadic code around the existing parts.
I have tried looking for examples of ST monad code but it does not seem to be covered in Real World Haskell, and the haskell wiki examples are very short and simple.
thanks!