base package -- goals

[Simon Marlow]

On 25/02/13 18:05, Ian Lynagh wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 06:38:46PM +0100, Herbert Valerio Riedel wrote:
>> Ian Lynagh <ian at well-typed.com> writes:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> If we did that then every package would depend on haskell2010, which
>>> is fine until haskell2013 comes along and they all need to be changed
>>> (or miss out on any improvements that were made).
>>
>> ...wouldn't there also be the danger of type(class)-incompatible
>> (e.g. the superclass breakages for startes) changes between say
>> haskell2010 and haskell2013, that would cause problems when trying to
>> mix libraries depending on different haskell20xx library versions?
>
> I think that actually, for the Num/Show change, the hasell98/haskell2010
> packages just incorrectly re-export the new class.
>
> Personally, I don't think the language report should be specifying the
> content of libraries at all,

It's not that straightforward, because the language report refers to 
various library functions, types and classes.  For example, integer 
literals give rise to a constraint on Num, so we have to say what Num 
is.  Guards depend on Bool, the translation of list comprehensions 
refers to "map", and so on.

It could be whittled down certainly (we actually removed a few libraries 
in Haskell 2010), but there's still a core that is tied to the language 
definition.

Cheers,
	Simon