[Haskell-cafe] Backward compatibility

[Niklas Hambüchen]

On 04/05/13 01:52, Nicolas Trangez wrote:
> On Fri, 2013-05-03 at 10:40 -0700, Hilco Wijbenga wrote:
>> Given the apparent simplicity of the changes needed to keep one's
>> Haskell code up to snuff and the strong typing inherent in Haskell
>> code, would it not be possible to create something similar? If there
>> is a tool that moves (most of) one's code from Haskell version n to
>> n+1 then making breaking changes would be even less of an issue.
>>
>> Just an idea, I have no clue about its feasibility...
> 
> I mentioned the same on #haskell today. Something like Coccinelle
> (http://coccinelle.lip6.fr) "semantic patches" could be really useful to
> automate (some) API & language changes. Somewhat like (but better than)
> the Python '2to3' tool.
> 
> I think some message about a GSoC project regarding an AST-based
> refactoring tool was posted to this list. That might be a useful
> building block for such tool?

Yes, I proposed that.

It seems to be already in the making by some, but seems to need more
concentrated community effort/support/contribution.

It would also *hugely* reduce the time spent on what my next email is about.