Keep the present Haskell record system!

[John Meacham]

I have similar concerns. All of the record proposals I have seen don't
really seem to subsume the current haskell record system, the task is
different, anonymous records feel like they fill a similar niche to
anonymous tuples, and just like we don't declare everything as

newtype Foo = Foo (Int,Char,Either Bar Baz)

it would seem odd that the only way to get named fields is to do the
same thing but with records.

not to say that the record proposals won't be useful in their own right,
but I wouldn't want too see them necessarily replace labeled fields.


it would also be unfortunate if the choice to use the (often cleaner)
labeled fields implied a run-time and change in representation, one
shouldn't have to make decisions like that.

It feels to me that anonymous records should look more like the other
anonymous(ish) type haskell provides, tuples. so the following syntax
feels more natural

(x = 3,y = 4) 
(x=3 | r)

where (perhaps)
(x,y,z) is shorthand for (t1 = x,t2 = y,t3 = z) 

this would also have the nice advantage that it is syntaxwise more backwards
compatable, since labeled fields require a constructor argument to
appear before the {}'s but tuples already don't. (and presumably a new
record system wouldn't)

I think an issue is that we call the current system records, so we
expect them to work like other languages records, when in actuality,
they are just labeled fields on standard haskell datatypes, but since
that is true, we get all the power of standard haskell datatypes such as
strict fields, summation types, the ability to declare instances and
lots of typesafety. Haskell currenty just doesn't have a record system,
adding one shouldn't get rid of the unrelated and very useful labeled
fields feature :)

        John


-- 
John Meacham - ⑆repetae.net⑆john⑈