Hi, Am Freitag, den 26.06.2015, 18:08 +0200 schrieb Herbert Valerio Riedel:
Why/How/When? =============
For details (including motivation and a suggested transition scheme) please consult
https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Proposal/AbstractFilePath
unless proven wrong, I assume that this breaks lots of code. So by default, I am doubtful towards that proposal. Also, the argument about inefficiency does not convince me. In a Prelude where "type String = [Char]", this is – as bad as it may be – consistent and expected. Just like you manually have to reach out for dedicated string types if you want efficient Haskell, you can manually reach out for dedicated FilePath libraries. I doubt that it is a good idea to fix the String problem in small, isolated chunks. However, the argument that, depending on the system, "type FilePath = String" is simply wrong (because the semantics of file paths are not unicode points), is one that I buy in. On such systems, the Prelude is, in a moral sense, wrongly typed, and the situation is comparable to a hypothetical "type String = [Word8]" – which is just wrong in a world of unicode. So for me, the faithful representation of system filepaths makes this proposal interesting. I like it when Haskell “gets it right”. So if the transition can be made somewhat smooth, I’m leaning towards supporting it. Greetings, Joachim -- Joachim “nomeata” Breitner mail@joachim-breitner.de • http://www.joachim-breitner.de/ Jabber: nomeata@joachim-breitner.de • GPG-Key: 0xF0FBF51F Debian Developer: nomeata@debian.org