On Fri, 21 Sep 2007, Josef Svenningsson wrote:
Henrik and Ian,
You've expressed worries that having functions with the same name but different types could be problematic since it would cause confusing error messages. While I can sympathize with that argument I don't think it is an argument against having such functions. It is an indication that the tools we're using don't report errors very well.
People often forget that there are more Haskell tools than the one compiler they use. There are also tools like Haddock, extended static checkers and tools that still do not exist, like an IDE for refactoring, which will be complicated by such extensions. Thus language extensions should be considered carefully before adoption. In this case, I have the feeling that people have just aversions against using the possibilities of the module system that already exist.