[ghc-steering-committee] Our process and BIG ideas

[Richard Eisenberg]

I like Simon’s steps below. Indeed, I’ve been wondering when/how to make my “Add dependent types to Haskell” proposal. By making a step (1) proposal, I could prepare that easily and early, allowing lots of time for people to warm up to the idea.

Thinking about it more, I think this would solve a problem that came up just a few days ago: @andrewthad pointed out in my “visible dependent quantifier” proposal that several proposals floating around right now are all little slices of my ideas about adding dependent types. The proposals have merit by themselves (I think), and that’s why I’m proposing them. However, Andrew is right that it might make it all easier to understand in the context of the larger proposal. With Simon’s extra step, below, I could propose dependent types, writ large, and then link concrete proposals back to the grand, philosophical vision. At some point, there would be a big proposal to actually add the dependent types, but this structure would allow me to tell a more coherent story about the little pieces I’m laying down now as foundations.

Richard

> On Nov 13, 2017, at 7:39 AM, Simon Peyton Jones <simonpj at microsoft.com> wrote:
> 
> 1.  Philosophically, we like the direction of travel.  If there are no surprises, we'd like to have this in the language.
> 
> 2.  Details.  Now there are lot of specifics.  Interactions with other features of Haskell.  If there are going to be changes in Core, a precise specification of those changes would be helpful.  (I know that Core is an internal matter, but it's an outstandingly good sanity-check.)
> 
> 3.  Implementation.  Now we have an implementation.
> 
> 4.  Merge into HEAD