Gut feeling: the quick'n dirty script case occurs far less than the
whole module case. Thus I think the benefit of automatically importing
the Prelude if the module declaration is omitted should not happen:
the Principle of Least Surprise out-weighs the small benefit to a rare
case.
Correct me if I'm wrong about my hunch that the quick'n dirty case is
rare. Even so, I have a healthy respect both for Least Surprise and a
minimal number of behaviors when it comes to compilers.
My vote would be to never automatically import the Prelude, at least
not by default.
Regarding type variable naming, a few of my more hardware minded
friends I've asked to try Haskell often tease me about the opaque type
variable names in the Prelude--it seems greater consideration of type
variable names in the Prelude might behoove new users.
On 3/27/07, Lennart Augustsson
I agree, I think this is what we need. Plus a decision of what names the builtin syntax refers to, like the type of 'a'.
-- Lennart
On Mar 26, 2007, at 23:30 , Ashley Yakeley wrote:
Sebastian Sylvan wrote:
The solution is simple: * If there is a "module M where" clause in the beginning of the file, then it's a "proper" module and shouldn't import the Prelude. * If there is no module declaration then it's a "quick'n dirty script" and should have the Prelude implicitly imported. * Interactive interpreters should probably import the Prelude. That should take of most issues.
I think this is ideal. I've always thought writing "import Prelude" was a good idea if one wants one's module to import the Prelude. It's one less corner case.
-- Ashley Yakeley
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