How can I support a proposal that cements a

already firmly established practice, I fundamentally disagree with?

Every extension in a stable GHC release by extension has to be stable, maybe deprecated. But stable. This proposal basically says it is ok to have unstable extensions in a stable GHC release. I do not believe that -WXUnstable should exist in a stable compiler. And from an end user perspective I think there can only be stable and deprecated extensions.

GHC is already a highly complex piece of software from an end user perspective, let’s try to make it simpler not add even more complexity.

I have no intentions to turn this proposal into

a radical change to release practices. I have provided most of this for context as to why I can not see myself supporting this proposal as is.

I can support a subset of the proposal. I do not see how I can support a this proposal in its entirety?

Best,

Moritz

On Sun, 3 Sep 2023 at 4:59 PM, Adam Gundry <adam@well-typed.com> wrote:

On 03/09/2023 01:15, Moritz Angermann wrote:
>
> The practice that we put experimental/unstable features into our stable
> releases is something this proposal seems to cement, which is why I’m so
> much against it in this form.

But that practice is already firmly established (de facto), it's not
something being introduced by this proposal! So while I understand your
opposition to *the practice*, I'm struggling to understand the strength
of your opposition to *the proposal*.

You're welcome to make the argument (in a subsequent proposal, perhaps)
that GHC should more firmly gate access to unstable features. If
anything, that would seem easier to specify once the proposal's approach
clearly defines those features. And in the interim, at least the
proposal makes it possible to switch off unstable features systematically.

So I understand that this proposal doesn't get you everything you want.
But it seems like a reasonable interim step, and one that is more likely
to command broad consensus than a radical change to release practices?

Best wishes,

Adam

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

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