Array interface refactoring

[Alson Kemp]

We had a short discussion on the IRC channel the other
day about Arrays.  I advocated that we do some
refactoring work and didn't meet with overwhelming
disagreement, so I wanted to propose that the Arrays
interfaces be refactored in Haskell'.

As a Haskell new-ish-bie, the various Array interfaces
seem a bit inconsistent and make learning/using arrays
complicated.  I *do* understand how to use arrays in
Haskell, but I think that the interface could be
cleaned up.

Examples of current confusions:
 IArray and Array are dupes (obvious);
 listArray for IArray, but newListArray for MArrays;
 "!" for IArray, but readArray for MArrays.

Proposal: I would propose the following for Haskell':
 "Array"  is the interface for arrays; drop IArray; 
 "MArray" is the interface for arrays in monads (IO,
ST, etc);
 As much as possible, functions that operate on arrays
will be the same for both Array and MArray (e.g. "!"
for element access in both Array and MArray);
 In cases in which confusion would result from
identical functions or in which it is beneficial to
differentiate, functions will be minimally changed to
identify the intended function type (e.g. listToArray
for Array; listToMArray for MArray).
 Descriptive names ("toArray"; "toMArray") instead of
termsOfArt ("freeze", "thaw").

---

 Perhaps this e-mail could be read more generally as a
request to consistencify/update the (Data) libraries
in general (e.g. only use "unsafe*" if referential
transparency is broken; group refs into Data.Ref.IO,
Data.Ref.ST rather than Data.STRef, Data.IORef; create
ListInterface Class to propogate consistently "toList"
& "fromList" functions; append "_s" to functions that
are stricified, "foldl_s" instead of "foldl'"; "//"
performs very different functions in List and IArray).
 


 Is this possible for Haskell'?  Or is this too much
of a break?  If it's possible, I'm happy to build a
wiki page for discussion (I noticed that a short page
has been started.)

  - Alson
 (A presumptuous new-ish-bie?  Why yes, how did you
guess?)