Overloaded record fields: we ought to change the name of FldTy

Hi, I'm currently watching the Skills Matter talks you gave (great!) and I'm slightly worried that we're going to expose beginners (and intermediate users!) to a name called FldTy, which might be OK for a GHC-internal name, but is not very readable. If this is going to be exposed to users, could we name is something readable, like FieldType, Field, or something similar? -- Johan

Thanks Johan, On 30/04/14 09:33, Johan Tibell wrote:
I'm currently watching the Skills Matter talks you gave (great!) and I'm slightly worried that we're going to expose beginners (and intermediate users!) to a name called FldTy, which might be OK for a GHC-internal name, but is not very readable.
If this is going to be exposed to users, could we name is something readable, like FieldType, Field, or something similar?
While I'm hoping to avoid exposing these names to most users more than at present, I think you're right: we should pick slightly more informative names. (Various others have also made this suggestion!) Perhaps: Has |-> HasField FldTy |-> FieldType Upd |-> UpdatedField UpdTy |-> UpdatedType If possible, I'd prefer to merge the existing patches more or less as is, then I can work on the library design without continually needing to fix merge conflicts. Apart from naming, I'd like to tweak the design to improve the presentation of inferred types that result from ORF code. Since I originally implemented it, the constraint solver seems to have changed in a way that makes the "functional dependencies via type families" approach used lead to less pretty types. Obviously we need something a little less brittle. Cheers, Adam -- Adam Gundry, Haskell Consultant Well-Typed LLP, http://www.well-typed.com/

On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 5:22 PM, Adam Gundry
If possible, I'd prefer to merge the existing patches more or less as is, then I can work on the library design without continually needing to fix merge conflicts.
Agreed. We should try to get the patches in sooner rather than later to avoid extra work for you and allow people to try the feature.

I’m reviewing the patch now.
From: ghc-devs [mailto:ghc-devs-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Johan Tibell
Sent: 30 April 2014 19:14
To: Adam Gundry
Cc: ghc-devs@haskell.org
Subject: Re: Overloaded record fields: we ought to change the name of FldTy
On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 5:22 PM, Adam Gundry
participants (3)
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Adam Gundry
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Johan Tibell
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Simon Peyton Jones