[Haskell-cafe] Why were datatype contexts removed instead of "fixing them"?

[Alexander Solla]

On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 10:29 AM, gs <voldermort at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Brandon Allbery <allbery.b <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
> > ... which means that implementers should be free to "fix" data type
> contexts
> > however they like, as they are now complier extensions which won't
> conflict
> > with standard Haskell.
> >
> > Except that people do build older programs with newer Haskell compilers,
> and it's bad to "repurpose" a syntax like that because it leads to strange
> errors.
>
> "Remembering" data type contexts shouldn't break existing code, unless it's
> semantically broken already. (I'm sure that anyone could come up with a
> theoretical example of code which would break


These statements are contradictory.


> - but would it break any
> real-world code?)


I do not support that criterion.  We use theory to ENSURE that no
real-world code will break.
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