Hey all,

our own Simon Peyton Jones proposes to simplify static pointers:

Static pointers are a feature that allows you to get pointers to expressions that are valid across different processes and machines.

Allowing these expressions to reference certain types of local bindings has been producing issues that are hard to fix. The proposal suggests that instead we could just not allow that - simplifying both the specification and the implementation without placing a large burden on users (e.g. bindings can just be moved to the top level instead).

See the proposal itself for details: https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/wip/spj-static/proposals/0000-simplify-static.rst

I recommend acceptance. The cost of trying to figure out how to support the current spec is not worth the fairly marginal gain over the proposed simplification.

It would be great if I could get your responses on this by December 10.

Thanks,

Jakob

On Tue, Nov 25, 2025 at 1:54 PM Adam Gundry <adam@well-typed.com> wrote:

Dear Committee,

Simon proposes to simplify the specification of StaticPointers:

https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/pull/732
https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/wip/spj-static/proposals/0000-simplify-static.rst

I'd like to nominate Jakob as the shepherd.

Please guide us to a conclusion as outlined in
https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/README.rst#committee-process-for-responding-to-a-proposal.
  If possible, please aim to make a recommendation by 9th December 2025.

Cheers,

Adam




On 25/11/2025 12:18, Simon Peyton Jones wrote:
> Adam
>
> I'd like to submit this proposal to the Committee
>
> https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/wip/spj-static/
> proposals/0000-simplify-static.rst <https://github.com/ghc-proposals/
> ghc-proposals/blob/wip/spj-static/proposals/0000-simplify-static.rst>
>
> Thanks
>
> Simon


--
Adam Gundry, Haskell Consultant
Well-Typed LLP, https://www.well-typed.com/

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