Sebastian Fischer wrote:
The proposal is not to replace 'mappend' in the Monoid class with <>. The proposal is to add the top-level definition (<>) = mappend to Data.Monoid.
Thanks Sebastian, you're right, I misread that. I wouldn't have made nearly as much noise then. It's still bad to have two definitions of <> that appear to be the same but are in reality two different functions. But in the short term, that won't cause me nearly as much damage. In the long term, it is perhaps worse. It means that now even superclass defaulting won't completely solve the problem - you can silently get the wrong function without noticing. That would be a very difficult bug to find. Note that this is worse than, for example, libraries that shadow Prelude functions. There, if you don't use the right qualified/hiding incantation, you'll generally get a compile error. Anyway, I apologize for grossly overreacting. If anyone needs me in the near future, please look inside the hole I am currently digging for myself. Thanks, Yitz