#7015: Add support for 'static' -------------------------------------+------------------------------------- Reporter: edsko | Owner: Type: feature | Status: patch request | Milestone: 7.10.1 Priority: normal | Version: 7.4.2 Component: Compiler | Keywords: Resolution: | Architecture: Unknown/Multiple Operating System: | Difficulty: Unknown Unknown/Multiple | Blocked By: Type of failure: | Related Tickets: None/Unknown | Test Case: | Blocking: | Differential Revisions: Phab:D119 | -------------------------------------+------------------------------------- Comment (by simonpj): OK so it sounds as if `Static` is 100% part of the library layer, and GHC knows nothing about it. That's fine; and will become clear when you re- structure. Concerning upheaving, my main goal is to have clean, well-designed primitives in GHC. I don't fully understand the `Any` business (e.g. how can it possible deal with polymorphic functions with more than one type parameter `forall a b. a -> b -> b`?), but it smells like a hack. And I don't want to enshrine a hack in GHC. Perhaps we could say, for now, that the argument of `static` must have no free type variables, just as it has no free term variables (other than top level constants). So, {{{ y1 :: forall a. Static ([a] -> [a]) y1 = static reverse }}} would be rejected, but {{{ y3 :: Static ([Any] -> [Any]) y3 = static reverse }}} would be accepted. Now you can continue to do your current hack in the library (pending a better solution for polymorphism), but the GHC part remains simple and clean. -- Ticket URL: http://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/7015#comment:22 GHC http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ The Glasgow Haskell Compiler