[Haskell-cafe] 2 modules in one file

[Henrik Nilsson]

Hi,

Yitzchak Gale wrote:

 > But for large and complex projects, this policy really complicates
 > the task of the project manager who wants to be able to
 > present various views of the source to teams working on
 > different subprojects, while juggling the version control
 > in an intelligent way. Directory tree structure is sometimes
 > the perfect tool for that, but Haskell has stolen it away.
 > It would be nice if compilers would offer, as an optional alternative,
 > a system of locating modules based on manifest files.
 > That would then allow multiple modules per source file.

Not that it is of any practical relevance now, but this was exactly
the thinking behind the design (some 10 - 15 years ago, time flies!)
of how Freja manages files and modules, as Malcolm mentioned.
I believe a clear separation between a language and aspects of the
environment in which programs are developed, such as file systems, is a
good thing. And while the Haskell standard as such respects this, I've
always found the fact that most tools rely on naming conventions for
mapping names of modules to names of files very unfortunate.
Hierarchical modules makes this even worse: what says that I necessarily
want the module hierarchy reflected in the directory hierarchy? And 
indeed, as Yitzchak said, what about non-hierarchical file systems, or
maybe storing source code by completely different means? And there are
also potential issues with not every legal module name being a legal
file name across all possible file systems.

So, yes, a system of locating modules based on manifest files would
be great. I'd use it all the time whenever possible, and never look
back!

Best,

/Henrik

-- 
Henrik Nilsson
School of Computer Science
The University of Nottingham
nhn at cs.nott.ac.uk

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