[ghc-steering-committee] Do we consider the GHC API in scope?

[Simon Peyton Jones]

I think we should cover GHC API changes.

* The committee is meant to cover the "users-eye-view" of GHC.
  The GHC API is a major asset, used by many users.  OK, so they
  are nestling a bit closer to the implementation, but still.

* There is no other forum to discuss API changes.

* In principle a user of GHC-as-a-library can call any old internal
  function; we should /not/ cover this.  Only the high-level
  "advertised" API.

* We don't do a good job of advertising that API; it's basically
  what is exported by module GHC.  But I think it that proposals
  focused on improving it would be quite helpful.

Simon

|  -----Original Message-----
|  From: ghc-steering-committee [mailto:ghc-steering-committee-
|  bounces at haskell.org] On Behalf Of Ben Gamari
|  Sent: 06 February 2018 02:30
|  To: Joachim Breitner <mail at joachim-breitner.de>; ghc-steering-
|  committee at haskell.org
|  Subject: Re: [ghc-steering-committee] Do we consider the GHC API in
|  scope?
|  
|  Joachim Breitner <mail at joachim-breitner.de> writes:
|  
|  > Hi,
|  >
|  > in
|  >
|  https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithu
|  > b.com%2Fghc-proposals%2Fghc-
|  proposals%2Fpull%2F108&data=02%7C01%7Csimo
|  >
|  npj%40microsoft.com%7C45d9aac776734af02fe208d56d09967f%7Cee3303d7fb734
|  b0c8589bcd847f1c277%7C1%7C0%7C636534810305126138&sdata=%2FlGFjPJMUrdqG
|  3Cx1mJ7Rq%2FGoq8NVnY3SEn843dIFWQ%3D&reserved=0 David proposed changes
|  to the plugin API. The propsosal is still under discussion (so if you
|  want to comment, do it there), but more generally, I wonder:
|  >
|  > Is the GHC API (including the one for plugins) in scope for the GHC
|  > steering committee?
|  >
|  I'm very much on the fence about this, despite being the one who
|  initially referred the issue. It's not clear to me that making
|  interface decisions about the GhcPlugins or GHC modules is a task
|  well-suited to a committee.
|  
|  Regardless, I think having a relatively high-visibility place to
|  discuss changes like the plugins proposal is quite helpful. So, even
|  if we decide that the API is out-of-scope for the committee, I think
|  it may still be helpful to use the proposal forum to solicit community
|  feedback. While in principle this discussion could happen just as
|  easily on Trac, my impression is that GitHub has been a bit more
|  effective in collecting a wide range of input.
|  
|  Cheers,
|  
|  - Ben