On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 12:49:59PM +0200, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
Hi
I ever was worried about the barrier that the complexity of the Haskell errors impose to users of DSLs. Many DSLs look so simple that even someone without knowledge of Haskell can make use of them for some domains.
However when the program is compiled then al the monsters of the deep appear in the surface: polymorphisms, undefined instances, type errors reported in a line produced by a type assumption in another, etc. This is a problem for an industrial use of Haskell in the large scale. For obvious reasons.
Indeed. For example, in my experience this is a big problem for diagrams.
The question: Is it possible to develop a GHC extension that attach (or prepend) such an explanation to the ghc error?
Or any other alternative that carry out the same functionality.
Surely it is possible. I have wanted this too. I guess the majority of the work would just be in coming up with a good, general design which is useful but not too difficult to implement. If anyone wanted to undertake such a project I would be happy to contribute some ideas. -Brent