On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 5:15 PM, Christopher Done <chrisd...@googlemail.com> wrote: > ... One thing that makes figuring out a code base hard is when the > code doesn't have explicit imports. Sometimes I can load the code in > GHCi and inspect the symbols manually, sometimes I can't. If the > import list explicitly said where stuff came from I wouldn't have to > deal with this.
Indeed. I strictly use this style in all my projects. See the following for example: http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/usb/0.6.0.1/doc/html/src/System-USB-Internal.html I see it as a service to my readers. In order to find out where a symbol is coming from they only need to scroll up and look it up in the import list. Note that for further convenience I group the imports by package so they don't need to figure out which package exports what module. I try to follow this style very strictly. I'm even using NoImplicitPrelude to not miss any implicitly imported symbol. I also import symbols from their defining module instead as from the Prelude. For example, instead of importing fmap from the Prelude I import it from Data.Functor. This ensures that when a reader looks up a symbol she doesn't need to skim through a lot of unrelated code. To be honest, there are cases where I violate my own rule. In the USB module for example, I import Bindings.Libusb without explicitly listing the used symbols. In this case I think it's justified because I pretty much use all the symbols from that module and all symbols are prefixed with 'c'libusb_' which clearly indicates where they are coming from. Note that, although I don't use it myself, the GHC flag: -ddump-minimal-imports can help you with this style: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/6.12.2/html/users_guide/separate-compilation.html#hi-options Regards, Bas _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
