[Haskell-cafe] Re: [Haskell] Top Level <-

[Yitzchak Gale]

Lennart Augustsson wrote:
> As I said earlier, global variables may be necessary when interfacing
> with legacy things (software or hardware).

By "prior context" I didn't mean legacy languages. I meant
logically prior - enclosing contexts.

It will always be necessary on occasion to refactor code
without having any access to the enclosing context.
If that refactoring happens to include acquiring an external
resource once, using it while our program is running, and
releasing it at the end, it is currently an awkward situation
for us. We're working on finding a fitting solution to this.

> The Haskell philosophy has always been to stick it out until someone
> comes up with the right solution to a problem rather than picking some
> easy way out.  So I'd rather keep global variables being eye sores (as
> they are now) to remind us to keep looking for a nice way.

I agree. But the eyesores do need to be guaranteed to work.
That is not currently the case. It's easy to fix the eyesores,
so I think we should do that now.

Regards,
Yitz