as an aside/work-around: you are aware of ":browse", ":info", and the like? e.g., in ghci (6.2.1; I think ":info" should be even better in 6.4): Prelude> :browse Control.Concurrent.MVar data MVar a = modifyMVar :: forall a b. MVar a -> (a -> IO (a, b)) -> IO b modifyMVar_ :: forall a. MVar a -> (a -> IO a) -> IO () readMVar :: forall a. MVar a -> IO a swapMVar :: forall a. MVar a -> a -> IO a withMVar :: forall a b. MVar a -> (a -> IO b) -> IO b addMVarFinalizer :: forall a. MVar a -> IO () -> IO () isEmptyMVar :: forall a. MVar a -> IO Bool newEmptyMVar :: forall a. IO (MVar a) newMVar :: forall a. a -> IO (MVar a) putMVar :: forall a. MVar a -> a -> IO () takeMVar :: forall a. MVar a -> IO a tryPutMVar :: forall a. MVar a -> a -> IO Bool tryTakeMVar :: forall a. MVar a -> IO (Maybe a) Prelude> :info Num -- Num is a class class (Eq a, Show a) => Num a where { (-) :: a -> a -> a {- has default method -}; (*) :: a -> a -> a; (+) :: a -> a -> a; negate :: a -> a {- has default method -}; signum :: a -> a; abs :: a -> a; fromInteger :: Integer -> a; } it is also not to difficult to use ":browse" from within a good editor to auto-generate an explicit export or import interface, by turning the type parts into comments. I used to do such hacks based on Hugs, but haven't updated them for a long time (ultimately, many of the things one would want to do with export/import lists should find their way into HaRe, the Haskell Refactorer, but that is work in progress: http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/projects/refactor-fp/hare.html ). hth, claus
It wouldn't be too hard to add a plain ASCII backend to Haddock that generates the interfaces for modules without the implementation - that would address Benjamin's concern to some extent.
Yes, that would be most helpful.
It's still not quite perfect because there is a typesetting step between what the programmer is writing in the .hs file and the way the generated interface looks -- people have to actually go to the trouble of running Haddock and double-checking that their interfaces look the way they intend. But I expect that this would become habitual pretty quickly, for those that care about this kind of interface documentation.
- Benjamin