building head fails in main/GHC.hs:2223:50

[Simon Marlow]

Claus Reinke wrote:

> how about this, then: darcs allows for selective pulls, so is there a way
> of tagging patches as belonging to different categories? submitters 
> could tag their patches according to simple priorities, using reserved
> words in patch subjects:
> 
>    - FIX_BUILD: essential fixes to restore one of the builds
>    - FIX_BUG: essential fixes to bugs in successfully built systems
>    - no tag: implies the usual run-of-the-mill patch we have now
> 
> the second and third categories are the reasons we are addicted to
> building ghc head in the first place, but if building doesn't work, we
> could switch to 'darcs pull -ap "FIX_BUILD"', pulling only those
> patches that help to stabilize the situation.

This looks like a pretty good idea to me.  I'd be happy to start adopting a 
convention like this, what do others think?

On the naming, I don't think there's any need for the underscores.  How about:

    FIX [BUILD] [#<ticket>]: <desc>

e.g.

    FIX BUILD: fix Windows build with GHC 6.2.2
    FIX #1234: unwibble
    FIX BUILD #1234: fix a ticketted build issue

When we decide on a scheme, we should document it at 
http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/WorkingConventions.

Cheers,
	Simon