On Mon, 2009-07-06 at 18:28 -0700, John Meacham wrote:
Well, without a replacement, it seems odd to remove it. Also, Haskell currently doesn't _have_ a record syntax (I think it was always a misnomer to call it that) it has 'labeled fields'. None of the proposed record syntaxes fit the same niche as labeled fields so I don't see them going away even if a record syntax is added to haskell in the future.
The people proposing this can correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding of their motivation is not to remove record syntax or immediately to replace it, but to make it easier to experiment with replacements by making the existing labelled fields syntax a modular part of the language that can be turned on or off (like the FFI). I'm not sure that I agree that it's the best approach but it is one idea to try and break the current impasse. It seems currently we cannot experiment with new record systems because they inevitably clash with the current labelled fields and thus nothing changes. Duncan