[Haskell-cafe] Hugs

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

On 15/04/16 4:16 pm, Manuel Gómez wrote:
> Although precise, coherent descriptions are available for Haskell 98
> and Haskell 2010 for reference in the Reports, the documentation
> shipped by GHC for many language extensions is often reasonably close
> in precision and coherence, as far as many students are concerned —
> and, more importantly, the learning process for a student rarely
> involves consuming a precise, coherent definition, and often involves
> a greater degree of experimentation and consumption of explanations
> aimed to teach, not to serve as reference for language implementors.
>
> I do not aim to suggest that standards are not useful —they surely
> are—, but standards are of limited use to many students.

I'm reminded of a Prolog textbook that was written with much thought and
care, diligently adhering scrupulously to the then-current draft of the ISO
Prolog standard, and tested in a Prolog implementation written to conform to
it.  The book ended up being useless because the standard changed to be
somewhat less of a complete break from the past, so eventually there were
*no* Prolog systems compatible with the book.

Students themselves mostly do not know or care what the standard is.
What they *are* affected by is whether their teaching materials agree
with the implementation they are using.