[Haskell-cafe] expanded standard lib

[brad clawsie]

i would categorize myself as a purely practical programmer. i enjoy
using haskell for various practical tasks and it has served me
reliably. one issue i have with the library support for practical
problem domains is the half-finished state of many fundamental
codebases such as networking and database support. 

in the perl world, support for these domains is provided through cpan, 
and this model is viable due to the (once) massive number of perl
coders out there. in the java, c# etc world, a "batteries included"
approach implies a narrowing of options, but also an immediate
delivery of functionality.

so far the haskell community has taken the cpan route for most
practical libs but i wonder if a "batteries included" approach might
help get some key libraries to a more complete state. in particular, i
would like to see support for basic internet protocols, database
connectivity, and potentially xml parser support rolled into the ghc
standard libs. there is always a strong debate on where the line is
drawn, but this functionality at least shows up in a plurality of
practical projects. the "batteries included" approach does imply
choosing preferred solutions when more than one library is available,
this can also be difficult. that said, i think haskell would pick up a
lot of new coders if it was obvious that the functionality they were
looking for came out of the base libs.

i know that people will say they don't use a database or xml, but
there will always be parts of a standard library that any particular 
coder will never touch...but still see value in the inclusion for
others.

comments?
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