> But if there are too many things missing, no one will use Standard
> Haskell - it already seems as if most of the people on this list are
> going to go straight to Haskell 2, which would mean that Standard
> Haskell might only be used for teaching.
Indeed, I do expect that most of the people on this list will
go straight to (the moving target of) Haskell 2. The purpose of
Std Haskell is to address the needs of people who don't need the
latest greatest, but do need something stable. For example,
the fact that Haskell keeps moving (which in many ways is good)
discourages people from writing books, which in turn makes it
less attractive for people who aren't already converted.
> thought this could be specified pretty easily), but I really think
> that the tidying up of the relationship between the prelude and the
> standard libraries is vital. For example, I can see no reason why
> PreludeIO and IO should be separate. Surely it wouldn't be much work
> to put it all in the IO library? As it stands, the prelude has to
> refer to the library, which, I think, underlines the inconsistency:
I agree that the Prelude could do with tidying up, but I think
it is no small task, and (worse) it is a task with no clear finish.
I do propose (unless people yell) to move back to the generic
take/drop/length operators, but if it's left to me not much else
will happen. On the other hand, if someone is keen to work on the
Prelude and standard libraries, in the next two or three months
(no longer) then I'd be delighted to hear from them.
Simon "desparately trying to keep the lid on the can of worms" PJ
