Haskell Platform proposal: Add case-insensitive and Haskell 98/2010 compliance

[Henning Thielemann]

On Mon, 14 Jan 2013, Ben Millwood wrote:

> In response to this, I ask you: is compatibility with the platform really a 
> goal for your live-sequencer? Would the live-sequencer benefit particularly 
> from use of the case-insensitive package? Would making the case-insensitive 
> package Haskell2010 enable it to work with your interpreter immediately?

  My answer is no, and I think it is the wrong question. My point was, that 
case-insensitive can easily be made both Haskell98/2010 and thus improve - 
the same way the "split" package improved by removing the GADT when it was 
added to the platform.
  I had actual problems when trying to do something sensible with JHC. It 
meant that I had to inspect and "fix" a lot of packages at once before 
seeing anything running. Not very encouraging when you try a different 
compiler.
  FlexibleInstances are not necessary for defining instances on Strings and 
if a package enters the platform it is a good opportunity to fix that. 
Platform packages also play a role as packages where beginners look first 
when they want to learn how to program real-world Haskell.


> That all said, I do have my own concerns with case-insensitive. Particularly, 
> it provides an instance FoldCase ByteString, implicitly treating ByteStrings 
> as text, which I believe should be discouraged.

I think it should import ByteString.Char instead of ByteString.