So here's a variation which goes to the other extreme. It is completely unsupported right now though: ╶┮▬ Bar/ ├─┮▬ Baz/ │ ├─╴ Internals.hs │ ╰─╴ hs ╰─┮▬ Foo/ ├─╴ Internals.hs ╰─╴ hs You may know this already (and I suspect there are those in your audience who know as well), but this is how Python works, except that your 'hs' files are called '__init__.py' and they're generally required for every directory with Python modules in it (mostly you will find empty ones littered throughout Python projects). You can, of course, put code in the __init__.py or rexport stuff from the modules to make them available at the level of Bar.Baz, for instance. For an extended example, if these were Python modules and you wrote: "from bar.baz.internals import some_function" The python interpreter would evaluate the top-level declarations within the __init__.py in each directory in order (1. bar, 2.baz) before finally importing from the internals module (at which point it would also execute all top-level declarations there as well. There are some clunky aspects to it and a danger of circular imports which results in all kinds of nonsense, but one thing I like about Python-style imports is that it's pretty much always obvious where things originated from. On Dec 18, 2016 2:29 PM, "MarLinn via Haskell-Cafe" < haskell-cafe@haskell.org> wrote:
I suppose the real question is, as a language standard and a community preference, should this be considered a bug? Should people be free to use X.Y.hs or X/Y.hs styles?
First off all, the support you mention seems to be incomplete, or very recent. At least my ghci 7.10 failed to import a module with a dot-name. But maybe my quick-and-dirty test was broken…
I'll also add a fun variation to the discussion. Let's say I have two modules named Bar.Foo, and Bar.Baz and submodules Bar.Foo.Internals and Bar.Baz.Internals. (eg. for testing purposes) It always bugged me that the usual approach would be this:
╶┮▬ Bar/ ├─┮▬ Baz/ │ ╰─╴ Internals.hs ├─┮▬ Foo/ │ ╰─╴ Internals.hs ├──╴ Baz.hs ╰──╴ Foo.hs
My gripe is that here related modules are in completely unrelated positions. One way to solve it with dot-names would be
╶┮▬ Bar/ ├──╴ Baz.hs ├──╴ Baz.Internals.hs ├──╴ Foo.hs ╰──╴ Foo.Internals.hs
But that can lead to a lot of clutter fast. So here's a variation which goes to the other extreme. It is completely unsupported right now though:
╶┮▬ Bar/ ├─┮▬ Baz/ │ ├─╴ Internals.hs │ ╰─╴ hs ╰─┮▬ Foo/ ├─╴ Internals.hs ╰─╴ hs
That hs name does look a bit ridiculous, but the idea is to have something like an index.html without reserving a name. If slashes and dots were 100% interchangeable, this would be the logical extension. Now related files are in related positions. Downside: The hs files don't have a file extension. (There could be a special case to use .hs as a special name instead, but that would lead to hidden files and break consistency…)
I realize this version probably won't gain much approval, but between this and throwing everything and the kitchen sink on the top level just because some tools don't offer opened-up nested hierarchical views into directory structures – I would choose this one, personally. Or maybe a mixture, depending on actual structure. But then both options are better than the one with unrelated positions, and the dot-name approach might at least be one that works right now.
Cheers, MarLinn
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