Modified proposal for default decls

[Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk]

Mon, 26 Feb 2001 07:07:55 -0800, Simon Peyton-Jones <simonpj at microsoft.com> pisze:

> Most notably, Malcolm's latest proposal introduces a new form
> of abstraction (named thing), a bundle of attributes like Gtk or Bzip.
> Another environment for the compiler to manage! Soon people will
> want to export these things and import them elsewhere!

Yes, we will! :-)
What's wrong with it?

Yet another name instead of 'foreign default':
    foreign module
I am specifying some details about a foreign module I want to
interface to.

> *  The "gtk:" part is a concession to (b).  It specifies a C
>    package from which this procedure comes. There is then some
>    compiler-specific mechanism for mapping the name of a C package
>    to the location of its header files and .o file.

This gives no advantage over the current scheme. I already can
specify header names in a compiler-specific way, and I still can't
do it compiler-independently, and the compiler still won't push it
automatically to modules which inline functions infected with C calls.

> Notice that cross-module exports of inlinings are now
> straightforward: the foreign call carries its package name with it.

How the package is defined?

> You may think this is too minimalist,

I would say: too incomplete.

> Do we really need the elaboration of Malcolm's proposal?

Yes, unless a simpler design provides what is needed.

-- 
 __("<  Marcin Kowalczyk * qrczak at knm.org.pl http://qrczak.ids.net.pl/
 \__/
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QRCZAK