base package (Was: GHC 7.8 release?)

[Joachim Breitner]

Hi,

Am Mittwoch, den 13.02.2013, 13:58 +0000 schrieb Ian Lynagh:
> If we go this route, then we would probably want to end up without a
> package called 'base', and then to make a new package called 'base'
> that just re-exports modules from all the new packages.

can you transparently re-export a module from another package? I.e. if
base depends on io, IO provides System.IO, is there a way for base to
tell ghc to pretend that System.IO is in base, but that there is no
conflict if io happens to be un-hidden as well.

It seems that something like this would be required to move modules from
base to something below it without breaking existing code.

Also, if it works that smooth, this would not have to be one big
reorganization, but could be done piece by piece.

> The disadvantage is that, at some point between the first release and
> the release that removes base, each package will have to have its
> dependencies updated.

Why remove base? If it is just a list of dependencies and list of
modules to be re-exported, then keeping it (but advocate that it should
not be used) should not be too much a burden.


(This is assuming that the reorganizing should not change existing
module names. If your plan was to give the modules new names, this
problem does not exist, but I’d rather prefer the less intrusive
approach.)

Greetings,
Joachim



-- 
Joachim "nomeata" Breitner
Debian Developer
  nomeata at debian.org | ICQ# 74513189 | GPG-Keyid: 4743206C
  JID: nomeata at joachim-breitner.de | http://people.debian.org/~nomeata

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