Iavor Diatchki <diatchki@cse.ogi.edu> writes:
Adrian Hey wrote:
IMHO preserving the status quo wrt records should be low priority. It really doesn't bother me much if new (useful) language features break existing code. I think this is a better option than permanently impoverishing the language and/or forcing users to migrate their entire code to some other less impoverished language which may appear in the future.
I also think that having backwards compatability is not much of an issue. After all, ghc has introduces a number of not backward compatable changes to haskell, and I never heard any complaints.
Oh no? Implicit parameters: I'm sure it is a great thing, but I'd already used the (?) operator, and need -fglasgow-exts. Now my program depends on a bunch of well places spaces to compile. Template Haskell: really cool new feature, which just happens to use a syntax that overlaps with the list comprehension syntax. And now, let's just screw any backwards compatibility, and re-engineer the records system¹. I don't need any of this, and it makes my life harder. Are you guys going to keep at it, until I regret ever using Haskell? There was recently a thread about using Haskell for something else than Haskell compilers; well, if you actually want people to do this, then you can't constantly keep changing the language. -kzm PS: For the record, I think the compiler developers are in general doing a great job of augmenting the language *without sacrificing backwards compatibility*. But compatibility is important. Branch GHC and develop a new language instead! -- If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants