[Haskell-cafe] ANNOUNCE: vector-bytestring-0.0.0.0

[Bas van Dijk]

On 17 October 2011 18:28, Christian Maeder <Christian.Maeder at dfki.de> wrote:
> Am 17.10.2011 17:26, schrieb Bas van Dijk:
>>
>> On 17 October 2011 13:12, Christian Maeder<Christian.Maeder at dfki.de>
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> So your package basically supports an unfortunate mix of bytestring and
>>> vector functions?
>>
>> No, vector-bytestring exports the same API as bytestring (except for
>> the Show and Read instances which will hopefully be fixed in a new
>> vector release).
>
> Yes, but Data.Vector.Storable can be simple imported and used in addition.

I consider that an advantage.

> I suppose, the (derived) Data instances (from vector and the original
> bytestrings) break the abstraction. (So you must hope nobody is relying on
> this instance.)

Good point! I will mention that in the documentation of
vector-bytestring. Also code using the ByteString constructor PS has
to be changed because I obviously can't provide an equivalent. However
the documentation of Data.ByteString.Internal (which exports PS) warns
"normal" users not to use that module:

"A module containing semi-public 'ByteString' internals. This exposes the
'ByteString' representation and low level construction functions. As such
all the functions in this module are unsafe. The API is also not stable.

Where possible application should instead use the functions from the normal
public interface modules, such as "Data.ByteString.Unsafe". Packages that
extend the ByteString system at a low level will need to use this module."

So I expect not many packages are using the PS constructor directly
which means the pain of switching to vectors will be minimal.

>>> How about proposing a better bytestring interface (if it
>>> should not just be that of vector)?
>>
>> I'm all for improving the interface but the goal of vector-bytestring
>> is that it can be used as a drop-in replacement for bytestring without
>> changing to much code.
>
> Changing back to another drop-in replacement for bytestring will be
> difficult if functions from Data.Vector.Storable have been used.

True, so lets try to make this the final replacement ;-)

Regards,

Bas