Ok, then I think the middle ground is keyword-specific annotations, as proposed by Neil. What should happen is that the raw annotations are used by a tool layer such as ghc-exactprint or HaRe, and other more casual users will not have to worry about the internal detail. On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 9:13 PM, GHC wrote:

#9628: Add Annotations to the AST to simplify source to source conversions -------------------------------------+------------------------------------- Reporter: alanz | Owner: alanz Type: feature | Status: new request | Milestone: Priority: normal | Version: 7.9 Component: Compiler | Keywords: Resolution: | Architecture: Unknown/Multiple Operating System: | Difficulty: Unknown Unknown/Multiple | Blocked By: Type of failure: | Related Tickets: None/Unknown | Test Case: | Blocking: | Differential Revisions: D297 | -------------------------------------+-------------------------------------

Comment (by simonpj):

I don't have data, but people are already complaining about the amount of code generated by data type declarations #9669. Have you counted how many data constructors there are in `HsSyn`? It's a LOT.

It just feels like a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Simon

-- Ticket URL: http://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/9628#comment:21 GHC http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ The Glasgow Haskell Compiler