[Haskell-cafe] [ghc-proposals] Allow reserved identifiers as fields ...

[Ivan Perez]

Just because it's possible to disambiguate with enough context, doesn't
mean it's a good idea to add it.

I've heard the idea of using keywords as identifiers in Haskell being
proposed decades ago. It was a bad idea then, and it's a bad idea today.

This extension would make Haskell harder to read. To save one character, we
now have to have more context when reading Haskell. It's harder for
newcomers. It's harder for experienced users. It's harder for syntax
highlighters.

What good reason could possibly exist to even entertain this thought?

Please, make Haskell code easier to read.

Ivan

On Thu, 26 Dec 2024 at 14:37, Anthony Clayden <anthony.d.clayden at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, 27 Dec 2024 at 03:48, Brandon Allbery <allbery.b at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The quote syntax has me vaguely wondering if there would be some
>> interaction with OverloadedLabels, ...
>>
>>
> Yes, OverloadedLabels is the thin end of the wedge. `#type` is already
> supported without quotes, and that's used as justification for `.type`.
> (But Labels starting upper case or with embedded spaces, etc aren't
> supported.)
>
> It's also something of a lexing/parsing disaster. ...
>>
>>
>>
> Indeed. Specifically all the developer tools are (I suspect) going to
> continue to treat `type` as a keyword (unless quoted). How does `blah.type`
> show in Visual Studio?
>
> This proposal doesn't for example include modifying HLS for the new
> context-awareness around reserved ids.
>
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