Keep the present Haskell record system!

Claus Reinke claus.reinke at talk21.com
Mon Mar 6 06:35:04 EST 2006


> also, while i like dynamic records for some types of tasks, i think
> that the "spirit" of Haskell in whole is to give explicit definitions
> of all types used and in this respect this type extension in not on
> "main way". 

record extension is the basis for record concatenation, which is
the basis for composing programs that use records. for instance,
if you have two attribute grammars that compute two sets of
attributes and you want to compose them into a single grammar,
you run into troubles. (dual arguments for extensible variants,
be it for exception types, or for extensible grammars that cover
haskell+extensions without having to specify and maintain two 
separate grammars). and the concept of partial type specifications
is not uncommon in Haskell (polymorphism, type classes).

claus


More information about the Haskell-prime mailing list