On 24 June 2004 13:18, Henning Thielemann wrote:

4.1 Package description: "The exact syntax is still undecided."

What's about using real Haskell code as package description? The package file could contain a function that builds a certain data structure. This would save you from designing a new syntax and would prevent the user from learning a new description language.

One reason for putting the package description into a separate file and specifying that it is pure data rather than a program, is so that external tools can read and modify it. For example, your programming environment might present the package description as a dialog box into which you enter the details (this isn't pie-in-the-sky: we plan to do exactly this in Visual Studio, and there's already a prototype). Cheers, Simon