November 2025 - ghc-steering-committee

The role of the shepherd
by Simon Peyton Jones 12 May '26

12 May '26

Friends I have realised, rather belatedly, that we don't actually have any written guidance for shepherds of GHC proposals, so we all have to make it up as we go along. Perhaps it'd be helpful to have some. Here's a start. The shepherd does these things: - Makes a recommendation to the committee for whether to accept, reject, or send back for revision, within a week of being appointed. - Actively guide the committee's discussion. - Maintain a list of votes on this spreadsheet <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1e6GdwHmAjeDEUhTvP-b18MDkpTfH3SMHhFu…> . - Actively facilitate the committee discussion, guiding us towards a decision, within the published time frame of 4-5 weeks. - Summarise the committee's thinking for the author's benefit, and work with the author on next steps -- this may often take the form of revisions to the proposal. - - Remind members (by name, not just general exhortation) who are silent that they are highly encouraged to contribute. - If the discussion does not converge within 4-5 weeks, take action to consult the chair, vice-chair, or secretary to decide what to do. It's much more than "make a recommendation and wait". Being a member of the GHC Steering Committee is a real service to the community. But of course we all have day jobs, and so not everything happens as we hope. Any thoughts? Simon

3 11

GHC proposal: specification of static
by Simon Peyton Jones 18 Dec '25

18 Dec '25

Adam I'd like to submit this proposal to the Committee https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/wip/spj-static/proposal… Thanks Simon

11 20

#681: Updates to modifier proposal, recommendation: accept
by Matthías Páll Gissurarson 02 Dec '25

02 Dec '25

Hey all, ChickenProp has been working on implementing the modifiers proposal (#370 <https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/proposals/0370-m…>), and has fixed some mistakes and omissions ( https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/pull/681) I had some initial concerns and requested clarification, which has now been addressed. My recommendation is that we *accept*. Here's a summary provided by ChickenProp: * ';' is now allowed in between modifiers attached to decls, and required before the decl. So %One %Two ; data F -- previously allowed, still allowed %One %Two data F -- previously allowed , now forbidden %One ; %Two ; data F -- previously forbidden, now allowed %One ; %Two data F -- previously forbidden, still forbidden Initially, I made the one before the decl required for parsing reasons. I couldn't figure out how to have all of: optional pre-decl semicolon; modifiers attached to expressions; expressions can appear at the top level. (I was getting shift/reduce or reduce/reduce conflicts in the parser.) Since there are no longer modifiers attached to expressions, it could be optional again. But in case we want modifiers on expressions in future, we might want to keep our options open. * No modifiers attached to types or expressions. * `-Wunrecognized-modifiers`, not `-Wunknown-modifiers`. Specify that it's enabled by default. * `-XLinearTypes -XNoModifiers` introduces backwards compatible behavior. * Add non-normative discussion of RN versus TC modifiers. * In the linear-types proposal, update the examples of modifiers attached to lambda-bound variables. I think the examples now match the BNF given. Also, the line "the `lpat` must be a bare variable" was contradicted by syntax elsewhere in the proposal, so remove that. -- -- Matthías Páll Gissurarson <http://mpg.is/>

7 10