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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 7/31/20 9:27 AM, Simon Peyton Jones
via ghc-devs wrote:<br>
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<div class="WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">My
real question is this:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0cm" type="disc">
<li class="MsoListParagraph"
style="margin-left:0cm;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo3"><span
style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Who “owns” (as in:
takes responsibility for) the GHC API?<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
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</blockquote>
<p>I guess one thing very important to me is that the architecture
of GHC and it's public interfaces will always be deeply
intertwined; or put a different way, efforts to manager the public
interface as a thin veneer over a big black box will not work.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:VI1PR83MB0429F1CC35AB06866B1AE7DEAD4E0@VI1PR83MB0429.EURPRD83.prod.outlook.com">
<div class="WordSection1"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span>
<ul style="margin-top:0cm" type="disc">
<li class="MsoListParagraph"
style="margin-top:6.0pt;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm;mso-list:l0
level1 lfo3">
<span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">What <b>is</b> a
good public API? Where is it written down?</span></li>
</ul>
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</blockquote>
<p>This I agree is important to discuss. I do agree with Moritz that
a lot of this stuff can be evolved, but the general direction can
be still be discussed. For example, the basic objects I offered
are a *huge* departure from what we have today, and any huge
change should be discussed up front a bit.</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:VI1PR83MB0429F1CC35AB06866B1AE7DEAD4E0@VI1PR83MB0429.EURPRD83.prod.outlook.com">
<div class="WordSection1">
<ul style="margin-top:0cm" type="disc">
<li class="MsoListParagraph"
style="margin-top:6.0pt;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm;mso-list:l0
level1 lfo3"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p></o:p>What
should GHC’s extensibility interface be like? Plugins
and all that. What is a good design for (say) extensible
interface files? What “hooks” should the GHC API afford?
This is more than just “what arguments should this
function take”… it’s a matter of fundamental design. But
design questions like this belong in the GHC-API world
(not the core GHC world) because they are all about
extension points.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoListParagraph"
style="margin-top:6.0pt;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm;mso-list:l0
level1 lfo3">
<span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">What is a good
design for the plugins story more generally?</span></li>
</ul>
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</blockquote>
<p>I've mentioned this before but I think plugins/hooks/etc. are a
terrible way to reuse GHC for other purposes, and exist as a
symptom of the rest of the compiler not being at all modular. It's
fine that we continue to support them in the short term, but in
the long term I'd really like to have a plan to obviate them
completely. (One can search "composition over configuration" and
variations on that slogan to find much ink has been spilled on
this general principle.)<br>
</p>
<p>John<br>
</p>
<br>
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