We don't need to stop-the-world, but we can at least agree a general policy in advance of starting to make such changes. In this specific case the unicode/byte mismatch means there's a strong case for doing it anyway; but one might argue for replacing String with [Char8] instead of removing it completely. Again, if we had a generally agreed approach to what "string" types to support, we could justify individual decisions like this easily by reference to that policy. ________________________________ From: libraries-bounces@haskell.org [mailto:libraries-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Bryan O'Sullivan Sent: 03 March 2011 19:20 To: Brandon S Allbery KF8NH Cc: libraries@haskell.org Subject: Re: Proposal: add ByteString support to unix:System.Posix.IO API 2011/3/3 Brandon S Allbery KF8NH <allbery.b@gmail.com> Which was my point. If you're going to deprecate Strings, do so across the board in an organized manner --- not via ad hoc deprecations to individual libraries. The only problem with that is that ad hoc deprecations are achievable by individual library maintainers, while a "stop-the-world" approach won't, I think, work. =============================================================================== Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://www.credit-suisse.com/legal/en/disclaimer_email_ib.html ===============================================================================