[ghc-steering-committee] Proposal: Type Fixity (#65), Recommendation: Reject

[Joachim Breitner]

Dear Committee,

Ryan Scott’s proposal to allow fixity declaration to explicitly target
values or types has been brought before us:
https://github.com/RyanGlScott/ghc-proposals/blob/type-infix/0000-type-infix.rst
https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/pull/65

I (the secretary) nominates myself as the shepherd, so I can right away
continue giving a recommendation.

I propose to reject this proposal. The main reasons are:
 * it is not clear if there is a real use case for this. Has anyone
   ever complained about the status quo?
   The proposal does not motivate the need for a change well enough.
   (There is a related bug in TH, but that bug can probably simply be 
   fixed.)
 * The status quo can be sold as a feature, rather than a short-coming.
   Namely that an operator has a fixed fixity, no matter what namespace
   it lives in.
   This matches morally what other languages do: In Gallina, fixity
   is assigned to names independent of their definition, AFAIK.
 * There is a non-trivial implementation and education overhead, a
   weight that is not pulled by the gains.

If we’d design Haskell from scratch, my verdict might possibly be
different (but maybe we wouldn’t even allow types and values to share
names then…)


Please contradict me or indicate consensus by staying silent.


Greetings,
Joachim

-- 
Joachim “nomeata” Breitner
  mail at joachim-breitner.de
  https://www.joachim-breitner.de/
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