On 5/21/13 2:06 AM, Gabriel Gonzalez wrote:

APIs are like monad tutorials: it's better to teach people starting from something simple and concrete than something abstract. If the Prelude is not for teaching purposes, then what is?

But the Prelude _isn't_ for teaching purposes. The Prelude is required because the definition of Haskell is circular. For example, in order to desugar do-notation, arithmetic sequences, etc (this syntax being part of the "language"), it is necessary to have particular type-classes/functions in scope (these functions being part of the "libraries"). The whole reason for the Prelude is as a means of resolving this circularity. It is just a happy side-effect that the Prelude offers some other functions which may be useful for teaching or for reducing imports. I'm all for helping learners, and I recognize that excessive polymorphism/abstraction can flummox them, but the Prelude is not the place for teaching (nor for importing the kitchen sink). Given the reason for the Prelude's existence, it should IMO be kept as minimal as possible. -- Live well, ~wren