Bit-rotting(?) HUGS-specific code in GHC boot libraries

[Austin Seipp]

Hugs ships it's own base; hugs98-plus-Sep2006 has libraries that
roughly match GHC 6.6 (base, QuickCheck, X11, HGL, OpenGL etc - those
were the days!)

Frankly I'd be extremely surprised if anyone using Hugs was using a
modern copy of base. If they are, either it's all perfect and nobody
is complaining, but I honestly find this quite unlikely considering we
don't see patches *ever*. In fact, I just looked through the Git
history, and I can't seem to find anything relevant here. The code has
been shuffled around some (people don't just delete it,) but none
really added, fixed, or brought up to date. For years and years.

I'm voting we delete it. In fact: I say if nobody pipes up and is
*committed* to maintaining it, we delete it, oh, two weeks. That's
standard library-proposal timeframe. (And I do mean maintenance - not
"drop barely enough work to get it into shape and then leave it alone
for 5+ more years.")

CC'd: Edward, do you have any thoughts? Perhaps this should go to
libraries@ ? If not, I'd even say we should go ahead and just get rid
of it sooner (like, next week) rather than later, when we're this far
into the release window.

On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 11:30 AM, Johan Tibell <johan.tibell at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think we should delete the code.
>
> It most likely doesn't work anymore due to bitrot (i.e. no one has tested
> the other side of the #fidef in years) so it adds clutter without value. If
> someone feels strongly about keeping it I think they should
>
>  * fix it and
>  * set up a buildbot so we know when we break it in the future.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 7:22 AM, Jan Stolarek <jan.stolarek at p.lodz.pl>
> wrote:
>>
>> > I know lots of people still using HUGS.
>> The question was not whether people use HUGS, but whether HUGS uses this
>> code. This is not the same thing. According to HUGS homepage last release
>> was 7 years ago - does it rely on current versions of base et al. or does it
>> ship with its own?
>>
>> Janek
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>
>
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-- 
Austin Seipp, Haskell Consultant
Well-Typed LLP, http://www.well-typed.com/