base vs haskell98

[Malcolm Wallace]

Ross Paterson <ross at soi.city.ac.uk> writes:

> On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 03:39:43PM +0000, Malcolm Wallace wrote:
> > I recently noticed something strange about the base and haskell98
> > library packages.  The modules "Prelude" and "Numeric" seem to be
> > in the base package, whereas I would have expected to see them in
> > the haskell98 package.  Is there a good reason why they are in the
> > "wrong" place?  And if so, should this be documented somewhere?
> 
> Prelude has to be in base; otherwise the haskell98 package wouldn't
> be optional.

Ok, I see.  nhc98 took the opposite design decision: the Haskell'98
libraries are always present, but the base package is more-or-less
optional.

> Perhaps Numeric could move if the names it exports were
> split between Test.Show, Text.Read and Data.Ratio.  I think that Foreign
> doesn't belong in base either, but people find it so convenient.

It's no big deal for me.  They can stay where they are if that is
most convenient.

Regards,
    Malcolm