
On Jul 21, 2016, at 11:29 AM, Yuras Shumovich
wrote: Unfortunately Haskell *is* implementation-defined language. You can't compile any nontrivial package from Hackage using Haskell2010 GHC.
Sadly, I agree with this statement. And I think this is what we're trying to change.
And the same will be true for Haskell2020. We rely on GHC-specific extensions everywhere, directly or indirectly. If the goal of the Haskell Prime is to change that, then the GHC-specific extensions should not be first class citizens in the ecosystem.
My hope is that Haskell2020 will allow us to differentiate between standardized extensions and implementation-defined ones. A key part of this hope is that we'll get enough extensions in the first set to allow a sizeable portion of our ecosystem to used only standardized extensions.
We can continue pretending that Haskell is standard-defined language, but it will not help to change the situation.
But writing a new standard that encompasses prevalent usage will help to change the situation. And that's the process I'm hoping to contribute to. Richard