Yuras Shumovich
Looks like reddit is a wrong place, so I'm replicating my comment here:
Thanks for your comments Yuras!
* Do you feel the proposed process is an improvement over the status quo?
Yes, definitely. The existing process is too vague, so formalizing it is a win in any case.
Good to hear.
* What would you like to see changed in the proposed process, if anything?
The proposed process overlaps with the Language Committee powers. In theory the Committee works on language standard, but de facto Haskell is GHC/Haskell and GHC/Haskell is Haskell. Adding new extension to GHC adds new extension to Haskell. So I'd like the process to enforce separation between experimental extensions (not recommended in production code) and language improvements. I'd like the process to specify how the GHC Committee is going to communicate and share powers with the Language Committee.
To clarify I think Language Committee here refers to the Haskell Prime committee, right? I think these two bodies really do serve different purposes. Historically the Haskell Prime committee has been quite conservative in the sorts of changes that they standardized; as far as I know almost all of them come from a compiler. I would imagine that the GHC Committee would be a gate-keeper for proposals entering GHC and only some time later, when the semantics and utility of the extension are well-understood, would the Haskell Prime committee consider introducing it to the Report. As far as I understand it, this is historically how things have worked in the past, and I don't think this new process would change that. Of course, let me know if I'm off-base here. Cheers, - Ben