Re: [GHC] #13065: Prohibit user-defined Generic and Generic1 instances

7 Jan 2017

      #13065: Prohibit user-defined Generic and Generic1 instances
-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------
        Reporter:  dfeuer            |                Owner:
            Type:  feature request   |               Status:  new
        Priority:  normal            |            Milestone:  8.4.1
       Component:  Compiler          |              Version:  8.0.1
      Resolution:                    |             Keywords:  Generics
Operating System:  Unknown/Multiple  |         Architecture:
                                     |  Unknown/Multiple
 Type of failure:  Other             |            Test Case:
      Blocked By:                    |             Blocking:
 Related Tickets:                    |  Differential Rev(s):
       Wiki Page:                    |
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Comment (by dfeuer):

 One place I think we still can't derive (seemingly reasonable) `Generic`
 instances is with GADTs. For example, today I can write

 {{{#!hs
 {-# LANGUAGE DeriveGeneric, StandaloneDeriving, GADTs, DataKinds,
 KindSignatures,
      FlexibleInstances, TypeFamilies #-}

 module GenGADT where
 import GHC.Generics

 data Foo :: Bool -> * -> * where
   X :: a -> Foo 'False a
   Y :: a -> Foo 'True a

 instance Generic (Foo 'False a) where
   type Rep (Foo 'False a) =
      D1 ('MetaData "Foo 'False" "GenGADT" "" 'False)
        (C1 ('MetaCons "X" 'PrefixI 'False)
          (Rec0 a))
   to (M1 (M1 (K1 a))) = X a
   from (X a) = M1 (M1 (K1 a))

 instance Generic (Foo 'True a) where
   type Rep (Foo 'True a) =
      D1 ('MetaData "Foo 'True" "GenGADT" "" 'False)
        (C1 ('MetaCons "Y" 'PrefixI 'False)
          (Rec0 a))
   to (M1 (M1 (K1 a))) = Y a
   from (Y a) = M1 (M1 (K1 a))
 }}}

 but I don't think GHC is able to derive such instances.

 I'm more concerned about backwards compatibility issues, though. As soon
 as a library chooses to derive a `Generic` instance for a type, that
 instance becomes part of the library API. Users may well come to rely on
 the existence of that instance, and also some of its details. If we
 prohibit custom instances, won't that strongly discourage libraries from
 deriving `Generic` for any but the most trivial exposed types? Let me get
 back to pattern synonyms. Suppose we have

 {{{#!hs
 data Tree a = Tree a [Tree a] deriving Generic
 }}}

 and we decide we want to play around with bifunctors, so we redefine this
 as

 {{{#!hs
 --newtype Fix p a = In {out :: p (Fix p a) a}
 --instance Bifunctor p => Functor (Fix p) where ...

 data TreeF t a = TreeF a [t]
 instance Bifunctor TreeF where ...
 newtype Tree a = Tree (Fix Tree) deriving Functor
 -- et cetera
 }}}

 We can recover most of the original interface using bidirectional pattern
 synonyms to work around the newtypes. But if we can't write our own
 `Generic` instance, we'll break everything. Existing library users won't
 define instances for `TreeF`, so their `Generic`-derived instances for
 `Tree` will no longer pass the type checker. Ouch. A recent `containers`
 version added `Generic` and `Generic1` for `Data.Tree`; had the
 prohibition been under discussion at the time, I'd have thought twice and
 thrice about whether that was wise.

 I don't think this issue was quite as significant before the rise of
 pattern synonyms; in that era, any structural change to an exported
 transparent datatype was necessarily a breaking one. With pattern
 synonyms, there are more places we ''can'' change representations, and
 therefore more reasons to avoid preventing such changes.

--
Ticket URL: http://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/13065#comment:6
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