[Haskell-cafe] ANN: HDBC v2.0 now available

[Duncan Coutts]

On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 15:22 +0200, Yitzchak Gale wrote:
> Duncan Coutts wrote:
> >>> So in the next cabal-install release (which should be pretty soon now)
> >>> configure will do the same thing and pick base 3 unless you specify
> >>> build-depends base >= 4.
> 
> Niklas Broberg wrote:
> >> I really really think this is the wrong way to go. Occasional
> >> destruction is desperately needed for progress, else things will
> >> invariably stagnate.
> 
> > I disagree. Having everything fail... would have been a disaster...
> > during the lifespan of base 4 we need to encourage new
> > releases to start working with it...
> > Doing that with warnings hints etc is the way to go.
> 
> No, that's not good enough either. Existing packages
> will just stay with old versions to avoid the work, and
> new packages will then also use old versions for
> maximum compatibility.
> 
> The incentive is not strong enough. Those warnings
> and hints must have teeth.
> 
> Comparing with what has happened in other languages,
> which have stagnated or not stagnated at various rates,
> it is clear that what we need is a well-defined deprecation
> process.

> The warnings should say something like: you had better
> upgrade this, otherwise it will stop working in the next
> version. Both maintainers and users should be aware of
> this threat.

I shouldn't worry. The next major version of ghc probably will not have
base 3 any more. So the question is how we check and what warnings we
give and to who.

My current suggestion is to require upper bounds on the version of base
and to warn when we end up selecting base 3 for older packages that do
not specify an upper bound.

Perhaps at some point we should start warning when the upper bound
people specify for new uploads is < 4.

What do you think the policy and mechanism should be?

Duncan