Suggesting RankNTypes for ill-formed types

[Oleg Grenrus]

FWIW. Often when I encounter that error, I want `ScopedTypeVariables`,
yet my code doesn’t always has the scoped type variable used.
So even GHC could parse further and propose it to me, there isn’t anything from to do it :(

I don’t know if many use /just/ `ExplicitForAll`...

- Oleg

> On 11 Aug 2016, at 20:30, Karolina Drobnik <karolinadrobnik at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello everyone,
> 
> I am working on my first ticket (#11669, linked below)
> and I have some doubts after a little bit of hacking.
> 
> There was a hint that an error message should be
> changed from the one suggesting RankNTypes to ExplicitForall.
> In my opinion it would be quite confusing for the user, especially where
> the type is ill-formed. A plain parse error should be shown here.
> 
> It is clear that it should be done in such a way after turning on one
> of the extensions, but what about the situation where proposed
> fix (suggesting RankNTypes/ExplicitForall) won't work?
> We should be able to distinguish ill-formed type from the correct one,
> even before the extension activation. To be honest - I don't know how to do it.
> 
> Additionally, I am not sure if we can assume that an user wants
> to use arbitrary rank (which implies ExplicitForall) or just a forall keyword.
> I am for the second one, but it is just my assumption.
> 
> And the last minor thing - a type formed in this way also rises an error
> suggesting using RankNTypes (as we know that wouldn't solve the problem):
> 
> f :: a. -> Int
> f = undefined
> 
> Maybe we could treat it as a typo (simple parse error) and propose
> an extension activation only when forall was parsed earlier?
> That could be tricky.
> 
> I'd appreciate some thoughts on this issue because I felt a bit lost
> after digging around the parser.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Karolina
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> #11669 - https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/11669 <https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/11669>
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