[Haskell-cafe] OS Abstraction module??

[Neil Mitchell]

Hi Bill

>     I am really talking about a module or perhaps a Haskell class that
> provides notion for multiple threads of execution, semaphores, .. that
> "hides" POSIX vs Win32 APIs .. i.e. the underlying OS APIs would be totally
> hidden.

I think you are thinking in a "C" way. In Haskell, portable is the
default. If you want to stop your code being portable, you have to go
out of your way. Haskell is a much higher level language than others
(such as C). Because the language is higher level, it tends to promote
much higher level abstraction in the libraries - hiding platform
idiosyncrasies in the process.

> IMO if Haskell (or say OCaml) want
> to be accepted by industry this kind of functionality is absolutely
> critical.

It is critical. Perhaps if C wants to be taken seriously it should
provide portability, which has been present in Haskell since the
beginning :-)

Thanks

Neil