[Haskell-cafe] Re: Haskell interface file (.hi) format?

[Simon Marlow]

Stefan O'Rear wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 05:45:48AM +0100, Tomasz Zielonka wrote:
>> On Fri, Nov 30, 2007 at 08:55:51AM +0000, Neil Mitchell wrote:
>>> Hi
>>>
>>>>   Prelude> :b Control.Concurrent.MVar
>>>>   module 'Control.Concurrent.MVar' is not interpreted
>>> :b now defaults to :breakpoint, you want :browse
>> That's a questionable decision, IMO:
>> - it changes behavior
>> - I expect :browse to be used more often, so it deserves the sort
>>   :b version (:bro is not that short)
>>
>> On the other hand, this change can have an (unintended?) feature
>> advertising effect ;-)
> 
> It's not a decision at all.  :b is the first command starting with b,
> which was browse yesterday, is breakpoint today, and tomorrow will be
> something you've never heard of.  

Well, it wasn't quite that accidental.  I noticed that :b had changed, made 
a unilateral decision that :breakpoint was likely to be typed more often 
than :browse, and decided to leave it that way.

> It's inherently fragile, and shouldn't
> be relied on in scripts - and if :b does anything funny, spell out the
> command!

FWIW, I wish we'd never implemented the "first prefix" match behaviour, 
unextensible as it is.  We could change it for 6.10...

Cheers,
	Simon