the Word type

[Simon Marlow]

> > Comments in the Hugs sources claim that the Word type is deprecated,
> > and it's not mentioned in the FFI spec, but it's present with a full
> > set of instances in the libraries.  Which is right?
>=20
> It is not part of the ffi spec because it can't be used in a portable
> manner.  (The same problem goes for Int too, of course.)
>=20
> I've argued for its complete removal from the libraries because the
> vast majority of the code written with it will be non-portable.  I
> think the counter-argument was that some portable usages are possible
> with one of Chris Okasaki's data structures being an example.
>=20
> So, at least for now, it remains alive and well in the Hugs code in
> the interests of GHC-compatability and backwards-compatability.
>=20
> Hopefully the comments in the Hugs source code (which were probably
> added by me) match the above.

I think it's there for symmetry, not much else.  Word suffers from the
same problems as Int, so while we have one we might as well have the
other.

Cheers,
	Simon