[Haskell-cafe] Proposal: Shorter Import Syntax

[Bardur Arantsson]

On 06/04/2015 04:24 AM, Phil Ruffwind wrote:
>> One can look at it this way -- the breakage is a fixed, one-time cost,
>> whereas the confusion has a running cost.
> 
> It's not necessarily that simple.  Breaking old code can also breaks
> all the tutorials, articles, and documentation scattered all over the
> Internet.  That cost could last a long time.  AFAIK Haskell hasn't
> done anything so drastic as to change the existing syntax, except to
> _remove_ things that were already strongly discouraged like n+k.  It
> will also introduce confusion of a different kind, as programmers will
> find it strange that their formerly correct code code having suddenly
> changed semantics.
> 

Of course we should take such concerns seriously, but given the rarity
of such usage it would seem to indicate that not many people are using
the "problematic" syntax in practice... which could be an indication
that a) haven't learned/copy&pasted it from a tutorial/book, and/or b)
haven't found it useful even if they *did* learn/copy&paste from a
tutorial/book.

So there's that...

> Personally I look forward to having to waste fewer keystrokes on the
> dreaded import list.  Having to explicitly write 'qualified' in
> acrowley's syntax would be less desirable, though still an overall
> improvement from the current state of things.

My only worry here would be that the logical conclusion to this is you
end up with a language which can only ever go towards a *local* optimimum.

Regards,