[Haskell-cafe] MRP, 3-year-support-window, and the non-requirement of CPP

[Herbert Valerio Riedel]

I hit "send" too early, so here's the incomplete section completed:

On 2015-10-06 at 18:47:08 +0200, Herbert Valerio Riedel wrote:

[...]

> In the specific case of MRP, I can offer you a Wall-perfect transition
> scheme by either using `ghc-options: -fno-mrp-warnings` in your
> cabal-file, or if that doesn't satisfy you, we can delay phase1
> (i.e. redundant return-def warnings) to GHC 8.2:
>
> Now you can continue to write `return = pure` w/o GHC warning bothering
> you until GHC 8.2, at which point the 3-year-window will reach to GHC
> 7.10.
>
> Then starting with GHC 8.2 you can drop the `return` definition, and

...keep supporting a 3-year-window back till GHC 7.10 (which
incorporates AMP and doesn't need `return` explicitly defined anymore)
without CPP.

And since you don't define `return` anymore, you don't get hit by the
MRP warning either, which would start with GHC 8.2.

GHC can keep providing as long as we want it to, and consider `return`
being an extra method of `Monad` simply a GHC-ism.

Future Haskell books and learning materials will hopefully be based on
the next Haskell Report incorporating the AMP and stop referring to the
historical `return` accident (which I consider badly named anyway from a
pedagogically perspective).

Code written unaware of `return` being a method of Monad will work
anyway just fine.

Do you see any problems with this scheme?