Andrew,
But isn't this exactly the point I was trying to make!? The whole point, to me, in functional programming, is that we shouldn't have to worry about the underlying implementation.
It is not exposing an underlying implementation detail to mandate that modules should have well-defined interfaces. If anything, it's enforcing good programming practice.
I agree absolutely that having well-defined interfaces is a good thing. I wasn't actually referring to that, I apologise for not being clear. However I saw no real argument for not having cyclic inclusions. You say we shouldn't have to spend time writing hi-boot files, and yet you also think that GHC should not do it automatically. So we have to restrict all programmers to never writing cyclic inclusions? :) Kind Regards, Chris.