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

[Joachim Breitner]

Hi,

Am Dienstag, den 06.02.2018, 09:27 +0000 schrieb 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.

just for the reference, that would be this module:
https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/latest/docs/html/libraries/ghc-8.2.2/src/GHC.html

So in particular, every change in HsSyn is no longer an internal change
under that view, as is any modification to DynFlags.

And I presume you’d include
https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/latest/docs/html/libraries/ghc-8.2.2/Plugins.html
and/or
https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/latest/docs/html/libraries/ghc-8.2.2/GhcPlugins.html
to be considered part of the API as well, right? But the latter re-
exports really many internal modules.

Under this rule, a change like
https://git.haskell.org/ghc.git/commitdiff/0e022e56b130ab9d277965b794e70d8d3fb29533
would have required committee approval?


I am worried about adding too much red tape to GHC development and
overloading the committee. How about this as a compromise:

    Changes to the GHC or Plugin API are not automatically within the
    scope of the committee, and can be contributed following the usual
    GHC workflow. Should the GHC maintainers deem a change significant
    or controversial enough to warrant that, they may, at their
    discretion, involve the committee and ask the contributor to write a
    formal proposal.

Cheers,
Joachim



-- 
Joachim Breitner
  mail at joachim-breitner.de
  http://www.joachim-breitner.de/
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