Objections to runAtomically

[George Russell]

Alastair Reid wrote:
> 
> > However we don't really need to discuss this anyway, since I don't
> > think either runAtomically or atomicallyModifyIORef need to be in
> > the FFI standard.  I'm quite happy to leave this open.
> 
> As usual, I disagree.  I think the FFI spec would be incomplete if it
> provided Haskell finalizers but no mechanism to write them safely.
Since we've talked about mutable state quite a lot, my suggestion would
be that we write, in addition to the FFI specification, a Mutable State
specification which documented newIORef, readIORef, writeIORef,
atomicModifyIORef (and possibly, for reasons of efficiency,
atomicModifyIORef_).  I don't think it need be very long.  It wouldn't 
have to be frozen right away; it would be good if some other working group
could be formed to carry it further, so that for example it could also
include mutable arrays.