+1 from me I’ve been meaning to say essentially the same thing as you just did. We all seem to concentrate on *adding* things to GHC; it’s a bit refreshing to consider *removing* something.
Echoing Austin somewhat: - Anyone using external core is either working with an old GHC or is kludging quite a bit, as it’s horribly rotten compared to “internal” core. (For what it’s worth, I’m responsible for much of the rot. When I started working on Core, external core was just enough rotten already that I didn’t feel compelled to keep it up to date... but now it’s in a sorry state, indeed.) - With the GHC API, the ability for plugins, and HERMIT[1], I think external core’s utility has been eclipsed. - GHC actually contains a parser for external core, which is type-checked during compilation, but its functions are never actually called anywhere! This is a sure sign of Something Wrong. Richard [1]: http://www.ittc.ku.edu/csdl/fpg/software/hermit.html On Apr 27, 2014, at 9:14 AM, Austin Seipp <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello all, > > Recently I was wondering something: is there any reason to keep > -fext-core around? In particular, it's been broken for a while at this > point, see GHC bug #5630[1] > > As far as I'm aware there really aren't any users of it still around > these days, at least none working with a modern GHC. And it seems like > if people were to need access to Core, they could use a plugin or some > such to get direct access to what they want. > > Simon mentioned removing ExtCore in face of replacing it with IfaceSyn > in the compiler. I'm not entirely sure how much work that would be to > bring it all up to scratch if people needed it, but maybe it's worth > thinking about. > > One other issue is a notion of semantics which is present in External > Core, but we also now have a documented semantics for GHC's core > language as well (which has evolved quite a bit), so I don't know how > much that matters. > > So long story short: I don't think anyone is using it, maintaining it, > and it seems subsumed by more recent events. > > Therefore, if nobody objects, I'd vote to remove -fext-core from GHC, > unless someone is willing to step up and really maintain it. If you're > using it, you should probably speak up soon I'd imagine... > > [1] https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/5630 > > -- > Regards, > > Austin Seipp, Haskell Consultant > Well-Typed LLP, http://www.well-typed.com/ > _______________________________________________ > ghc-devs mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs _______________________________________________ Glasgow-haskell-users mailing list [email protected] http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users
