| Are we talking about documentation for the H98 libraries?
| Are these libraries relevant?
Yes, in my opinion, these libraries are very relevant --- to
anyone who wants to build code using Haskell 98. Stability and
compatibility are the rewards that you get by choosing to write
a program in Haskell 98. The downside is that you won't be able
to use all those `hot' new features --- the experimental
extensions, details of which may change from one release to
the next, and from one system to the next. Some might even
suggest that this is really `upside'!
| Don't MPTC, Existential Types, Restricted
| Type Synonyms, Arrows, and an FFI substantial change the architecture,
| interface, and implementation of the libraries? As these language
| features are becoming more accepted (implemented in GHC & Hugs), is it
| worth investing time in supporting what are in fact really strange library
| APIs.
Some folks out there want to use Haskell to write real programs. For
them, there's Haskell 98. Meantime, others are exploring new ideas,
extending the type system, developing new idioms. One day, when we've
got more experience, we should have a better idea about some of these
things, and be able to judge which ones are good enough to make it in
to a successor to Haskell. I don't think Haskell 2 is imminent, and
I don't think we'll be throwing away our monadic libraries and do
notation in favor of arrows any time real soon (for example). Perhaps
that day will come, but I hope we don't rush into it until we've got a
lot more experience to be sure that it's a good move to make.
My short term hope is for a stable Haskell 98, that's well-documented,
well-supported, and well-used, both for writing useful applications,
and for exploring potential ideas for later versions of the language.
Good documentation for the H98 libraries (and more of them, for that
matter!) seems like a valuable step in that direction.
All the best,
Mark
