Re: [ghc-steering-committee] #190: Module qualified syntax, recommendation: accept

First of all, I totally agree that the proposed syntax is better. However, TBH, I don’t think it is a particularly good idea to change syntactic warts by way of a language extension. If we were discussing actually changing the language definition, that would be a different matter. But we are not. We just add an alternative and potentially cause confusion. Hence, I think, this is a bad idea. Cheers, Manuel

Am 08.03.2019 um 09:31 schrieb Simon Marlow :

Proposal #190 is about accepting the syntax

import A.B.C qualified

instead of (or in addition to) the existing syntax

import qualified A.B.C

I think it's widely accepted that the original syntax was a mistake. I don't need to rehash the rationale for the change here, iit's described pretty well in the proposal and elaborated in the discussion.

The question for us is really: is it worth changing? There are costs: - A new extension flag, which itself has costs (extra documentation, a new thing that people need to understand) - new code using the extension doesn't compile with older compilers - all the existing code in the world uses the old convention - etc.

Reasonable people can differ here. The discussion on the proposal has representatives from both sides of the camp.

Personally, the current syntax annoys me almost every day. It's already a small cost on everyone, and I think we need to move forwards even if there are costs in migrating. So, I'm going to recommend that we accept this proposal.

We might want to reconsider the name of the extension: QualifiedImportsPostpositive seems like a mouthful. Perhaps ImportQualifiedPost is enough?

Cheers Simon

On Mon, 4 Mar 2019 at 12:09, Joachim Breitner mailto:mail@joachim-breitner.de> wrote: Dear Committee,

this is your secretary speaking:

Module qualified syntax has been proposed by Shayne Fletcher https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/pull/190 https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/pull/190 https://github.com/shayne-fletcher-da/ghc-proposals/blob/module-qualified-sy... https://github.com/shayne-fletcher-da/ghc-proposals/blob/module-qualified-sy...

Simon Marlow has already volunteered to shepherd.

Please reach consensus as described in https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals#committee-process https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals#committee-process I suggest you make a recommendation, in a new e-mail thread with the proposal number in the subject, about the decision, maybe point out debatable points, and assume that anyone who stays quiet agrees with you.

Thanks, Joachim -- Joachim Breitner mail@joachim-breitner.de mailto:mail@joachim-breitner.de http://www.joachim-breitner.de/ http://www.joachim-breitner.de/

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