[Haskell-cafe] File path programme

[Duncan Coutts]

On Tue, 2005-01-25 at 19:12 +0000, Ben Rudiak-Gould wrote:
> My concern here is that someone will actually use the library once it 
> ships, with the following consequences:
> 
>     1. Programs using the library will have predictable (exploitable) 
> bugs in pathname handling.
> 
>     2. It will never be possible to change the current weird behavior, 
> because it might break legacy code. The System.FilePath library will 
> have to remain in GHC forever in its current form, enticing programmers 
> with its promise of easy pathname handling and then cruelly breaking its 
> contract.
> 
> If no one uses it in production code then we can fix it at our leisure, 
> and having it out there with "experimental" status isn't necessarily a 
> bad thing in that case. It just feels like we're playing a dangerous game.

That's a sufficiently persuasive argument for me!

Could we just punt this library for this release. After all we can add
libraries in a later point release (eg 6.4.1) you just can't change
existing APIs.

Hopefully if we leave it, the current discussion about designing some
sane and portable file path functions will result in a reasonable
replacement library.

Duncan