AntC> Steve, I think that proposal has been rather superseeded by AntC> http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Records/OverloadedRecordFields, which AntC> draws on TDNR. But SORF is best seen as an evolving design space, with precise AntC> details yet to be clarified/agreed. I've put my own variation into the ring: AntC> http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/glasgow-haskell-users/2011- AntC> December/021298.html -- which seems to have fallen into a black hole :-(
AntC> One of the aspects of TDNR that wasn't so popular was that its type-directed AntC> resolution was very similar to instance resolution, but subtly and confusingly AntC> different.
AntC> I guess we have to be very careful about the dot. It seems to be in a AntC> very 'crowded' syntax space, so if we implement the wrong way, we could end up AntC> shutting the door with the keys left inside.
AntC> (...)
All this dot syntax magic frankly frightens me. Haskell, as a pure functionnal language, requires (and allows !) a programming style that just does not mix well with object oriented practices. Stretching the syntax to have the dot feel a-bit-but-not-really like object oriented programming, mainly to have IDE autocompletion on some cases, does not make much sens. That's a benefit of my idea. Modular programming used the dot long before OOP became popular - OOP stole the dot from modular programming! If a record is a module, that only means that one thing can be both a module and a type (or value) at the same time. It takes little from OOP
On 28/01/2012 13:00, Paul R wrote: that OOP didn't already take from the more fundamental modular programming - and Haskell already has modules.
If the editor matters - and it probably does -, we could rather take a more ambitious path, and work on a real semantic editor, as opposed to a plain left-to-right text editor, with hacked semantic goodies to alleviate the pain. Every programmer has their own favorite editor, usually using the same one to work in many different languages. For the moment, you'd have a hard job separating me from Notepad++.
If you really want a "semantic editor", I'd argue a rich visual language with a file format that isn't intended to be read directly. Something more like writing in Word than writing in TeX. But I don't think most programmers are ready for this, for various reasons. Version control tools and readable differences get a place near the top of that list.