[ghc-steering-committee] merging #111: Linear Types

[Richard Eisenberg]

Hi committee,

On Oct 22, 2018, we conditionally accepted the linear-types proposal, which I have been shepherding.

Proposal: https://github.com/tweag/ghc-proposals/blob/linear-types2/proposals/0000-linear-types.rst <https://github.com/tweag/ghc-proposals/blob/linear-types2/proposals/0000-linear-types.rst>
Discussion: https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/pull/111 <https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/pull/111>
Conditional acceptance: https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/pull/111#issuecomment-431944078 <https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/pull/111#issuecomment-431944078> (you may need to "load more items" many times to view this, sadly)

Since the acceptance, there has been continued debate. Some of this has been about the syntax, which was left as a loose thread in the conditional acceptance. That debate has now been resolved, and the proposal reflects the final outcome of that. There is no comment declaring the new syntax accepted, but https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/pull/111#issuecomment-519175000 <https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/pull/111#issuecomment-519175000> describes my recommendations, which were unopposed in the committee discussion.

Recently, there has been some talk of rejecting the proposal. Considering we have already accepted the proposal, discussion of rejection seems out of scope. (Of course, anyone is free to make a separate, new proposal trying to revoke this one.) I I think it would clarify the status of this proposal if we merged the proposal text, labeling it clearly as conditionally accepted -- especially now that all remaining issues are around implementation issues, not design issues. (I'm including the specification of type inference as an implementation issue, because there is, as yet, no attempt to specify type inference beyond the implementation. It is hoped that we will rectify this, in time.) In anticipation of this, I've updated the proposal text to include the acceptance conditions.

So: may we merge? I almost just did it on my own, taking rights as shepherd, but I did not want to make a unilateral move that might be seen as controversial. (Given that we have accepted the proposal, I don't think it is controversial. But then unilateralists often don't consider themselves to be controversial.)

If this email gets silence, I'll likely just merge on my own early next week.

Thanks!
Richard
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