On 2008-05-25 16:27 -0700 (Sun), Frederik Eaton wrote:
...but updating it whenever the standard interface changed and broke my code. So I'd like to cast my vote for backwards compatibility. The standard libraries will never be perfect, but constantly deprecating and removing functionality can really impair their usefulness for large projects.
Just as a counterpoint, I have to say that one of the things that impressed me a lot about Haskell over the last two months as I've started using it for real work is that the library interfaces are of noticably higher quality than other languages I've used (in the main, C, Java and Ruby). Part of this may be due to having smarter people working on things in the first place, but I suspect a reasonable amount is due to the ability to change interfaces as one discovers how libraries are really used and better ways to design them. I wouldn't want to lose this, and end up with the kind of cruft that everybody knows is broken but will never go away that exists in the Java and (to a lesser degree) Ruby libraries. I'm willing to put up with a fair amount of interface-change pain to this end. cjs -- Curt Sampson <cjs@starling-software.com> +81 90 7737 2974 Mobile sites and software consulting: http://www.starling-software.com