That wouldn't work, as packages can't re-export modules. And even if they could, this method would be very awkward. This is about the third time that base has shrunk, and hopefully not the last. This protocol would leave us with some rather awkward names.
that sounds like a design flaw (and i believe it isn't the first time module re-export has come up?). yes, proxies are awkward, but less so than breakage. and nice names that don't do what they say are not nice at all, either. it is the problem itself that is awkward, and proxies are the only solution i know that works without relying on all clients following your development changes manually. the idea of such proxies is to allow refactorings to cross externally visible apis, from library code to client code, without breaking code: you refactor your library, so that the old api becomes a thin proxy over your new api; then you release your new library, together with the proxy; then you deprecate the proxy; clients who can't or don't want to refactor their code can keep using the proxies, whereas clients who do get around to cleaning up their code can continue the refactoring you started in your library code, in their client code, eliminating their uses of the proxy. i just did a little experiment, with ghc-6.6.1. consider: -- Y.hs module Main where import Data.Time main = print =<< getCurrentTime this module will not compile without '-package time' or --make: $ ghc Y.hs Y.o(.text+0xb1):fake: undefined reference to `timezm1zi1zi1_DataziTimeziLocalTimeziLocalTime_zdf1_cl osure' Y.o(.text+0x115):fake: undefined reference to `timezm1zi1zi1_DataziTimeziClock_getCurrentTime_closur e' Y.o(.rodata+0xc):fake: undefined reference to `timezm1zi1zi1_DataziTimeziLocalTimeziLocalTime_zdf1_c losure' Y.o(.rodata+0x10):fake: undefined reference to `timezm1zi1zi1_DataziTimeziClock_getCurrentTime_closu re' collect2: ld returned 1 exit status now, consider this cabal package, the only purpose of which will be to make Y.hs compileable: -- P.cabal License: BSD3 Author: Homepage: Category: Build-Depends: base, time Synopsis: testing proxy packaging Exposed-modules: Data Extensions: -- Setup.hs import Distribution.Simple main = defaultMain -- Data.hs (yes..) module Data(module Time) where import Data.Time as Time configure, build, install, and 'ghc -package P Y.hs' seems to work. $ ghc -package P Y.hs $ ./main.exe 2007-09-01 22:35:05 UTC would something like this work for base splitting?
Cabal really is a special case. The API is still much too immature to stabilize, which is why it's handled differently from the other libraries. It was never claimed to be stable.
it is now in use. therefore (apart from differences between theory and practice;-) there should be a stable version. i assume most cabal-specific breakage is due to early use beyond that stable api? claus