[Haskell-cafe] The instability of Haskell libraries

[Don Stewart]

jgoerzen:
> David Menendez wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 10:11 PM, John Goerzen <jgoerzen at complete.org> wrote:
>>> Don Stewart wrote:
>>>> Oh, the Platform has very strict standards about APIs,
>>>>
>>>> When a package may be added:
>>>>    http://trac.haskell.org/haskell-platform/wiki/AddingPackages
>>> That looks like a very solid document.  Does it also apply when considering
>>> upgrading a package already in the platform to a newer version?
>>>
>>> Also, I notice that http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Package_versioning_policy
>>> does not mention adding new instances, which caused a problem in the past.
>>>  I would argue that this ought to mandate at least a new A.B.C version, if
>>> not a new A.B.
>>
>> Adding or removing instances requires a new major version. See section 2:
>>
>> | If any entity was removed, or the types of any entities or the definitions of
>> | datatypes or classes were changed, or instances were added or removed,
>> | then the new A.B must be greater than the previous A.B.
>>
>
> Ah, sorry.  Read it too quickly I guess.


But remember, we don't have a tool to enforce or check the policy.

And we didn't get a SoC applicant to design it. So there's a challenge
to everyone.

The tool-to-be is described here:    

    http://donsbot.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/the-8-most-important-haskell-org-gsoc-projects/

In fact, I put it a #1

-- Don