[Haskell-cafe] Writing binary files?

[ross at soi.city.ac.uk]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2004 at 12:01:58PM +0100, Glynn Clements wrote:
> My view is that, right now, we have the worst of both worlds, and
> taking a short step backwards (i.e. narrow the Char type and leave the
> rest alone) is a lot simpler (and more feasible) than the long journey
> towards real I18N.

This being Haskell, I can't imagine a consensus on a step backwards.
In any case, a Char type distinct from bytes and the rest is the most
valuable part of the current situation.  The rest is just libraries,
and the solution to that is to create other libraries.  (It's true
that the Prelude is harder to work around, but even that can be done,
as with the new exception interface.)  Indeed more than one approach
can proceed concurrently, and that's probably what's going to happen:

        The Right Thing proceeds in stages:
        1. new byte-based libraries
        2. conversions sitting on top of these
        3. the ultimate I18N API

        The Quick Fix: alter the existing implementation to use the
        encoding determined by the current locale at the borders.

When the Right Thing is finished, the Quick Fix can be recast as a
special case.  The Right Thing might take a very long (possibly infinite)
time, because this is the sort of thing people can argue about endlessly.
Still, the first stage would deal with most of the scenarios you raised.
It just needs a group of people who care about it to get together and
do it. 

The Quick Fix is the most logical implementation of the current
definition of Haskell, and entirely consistent with its general
philosophy of presenting the programmer with an idealized (some might
say oversimplified) model of computation.  From the start, Haskell
has supported only character-based I/O, with whatever translations
were required to present a uniform view on all platforms.  And that's
not an entirely bad thing.  It won't work all the time, but it will be
simple, and good enough for most people.  Its existence will not rule
out binary I/O or more sophisticated alternatives.  Those who need more
may be motivated to help finish the Right Thing.