Crazy suggestion: ByteString -> Bytes

Merijn Verstraaten merijn at inconsistent.nl
Mon Jan 7 09:25:17 UTC 2019


Ok, so I think there is a fairly wide consensus that the name ByteString is a pretty misleading historical naming mistake. On the other hand, I also realise bytestring is at the very core of the Haskell ecosystem and any breakage has to be avoided at all cost...

So I was just wondering on IRC what (if any?) problems we'd run into if we released a "bytes" package that's just s/ByteString/Bytes of bytestring (Data.Bytes, Bytes type, etc) then turn bytestring into a hollow shell that just re-exports Data.Bytes as Data.ByteString, etc. and defines "type ByteString = Bytes".

I realise there's no way we'll get rid of bytestring itself any time soon (if ever), but at least we could point new code and beginners at a less confusingly named type. Added bonus Bytes is considerably shorter to type!

Cheers,
Merijn
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