First of all, I have no opinion of my own -- I merely share the memories
of also being confused by "type" not introducing a true type, but a type macro.
However there's something in the argument that I don't think is right..
Sven Panne
+1 to this. As has already been noted in a different thread, the "let's introduce a pragma, nobody is forced to use it" argument is bogus. It fragments the language for no good reason
One moment, please, the good reason has been provided -- newbie confusion.
and one *is* forced to handle it (when reading other people's code etc.). Furthermore, the current example at hand is roughly at position 2 of Wadler's Law of Language Design (https://wiki.haskell.org/Wadler's_Law), a.k.a. bikeshedding at the lexical level. ;-)
I don't think that the concept of "bikeshedding", on its own, should be used as a tool to prevent constructive discussion of material shortcomings.
Don't get me wrong: If Haskell was still at its infancy, renaming things would probably be beneficial, as "type" is somehow really a misnomer. One could discuss if "newtype" is really needed when we have "data" plus strictness annotations (personally I'm a bit unsure what the common use case for "case" is where they differ and what one might consider more natural). Given the case that people seem to move towards GADTs anyway, the discussion seems a bit moot.
The context here is newbies -- so existence of GADTs (which are an advanced concept, let's not forget that!) is off-topic to the proposal.
Just my 2c.
P.S.: If you think this part of Haskell is a bit hard to read and confusing, I seriously propose a week or two in C++'s wonderful meta-programming world with templates... ;-)
Hey, we're talking about language adoption here.. I presume.. ..and if we do, any undeserved complication does hurt. So, in the end, the idea will probably be shot down -- but please, let's shoot it down for a good reason, with a clear, irrefutable understanding of why. -- respectfully, Косырев Серёга -- “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche