[Haskell-cafe] Template Haskell a Permanent solution?

[Jonathan Geddes]

Thanks, everyone, for the responses.

> I don't understand why the library/extension duality is a problem.

I don't think it is a _problem_ it just feels strange to me. Maybe I'm
misunderstanding, is it possible to use TH without using the library
components?

> Shouldn't specialized features be defined in terms of general features?

Absolutely, but usually don't you use the specialized features over
general ones where you can? For example, I don't often (if ever) use
the general feature of the goto statement in C. Instead I use
conditionals, loops, and functions. I don't often write explicitly
recursive functions in Haskell, rather I use map, filter, fold, etc.
whenever the structure of the recursion allows.

> How does this differ from the current QuasiQuotes extension? From what I can
> tell, all you need to achieve this with TH is to automatically derive a
> Language.Haskell.TH.Lift instance for JsonObject, i.e. a  function lift ::
> JsonObject -> Q Exp such that the expression will evaluate to the original
> JsonObject. A QuasiQuoter like the one you describe can then be created by
> QuasiQuoter { parseExp = lift . json }.

Right, it's not a lot of extra work. But it's enough that in most
cases, I stick with constructing records or using other built-in
syntax.

> Should both approaches be supported
> directly, or should we sacrifice the generality of the current quoters for
> the simplicity of the ones you suggest?

No, I don't think TH should be sacrificed. I just think more specific
(and more simple) features might be nice in place of some of TH's
specific uses.