[Colin Paul Adams] Re: Proposal: Define UTF-8 to be the encoding of Haskell source files

[Colin Paul Adams]

>>>>> "Bas" == Bas van Dijk <v.dijk.bas at gmail.com> writes:

    Bas> On 6 April 2011 17:34, Colin Paul Adams <colin at colina.demon.co.uk> wrote:

    >> Allowed? Allowed for what?

    Bas> Allowed to be called a Haskell file.

Well, what the report says on that is irrelevant. If I see a file
containing Haskell code, I shall call it a Haskell file, irrespective. I
suspect I will be in the majority.

    Bas> If the report doesn't specify what a Haskell file is then we
    Bas> can't reliably exchange Haskell source files by only looking at
    Bas> the files themselves.

Sure we can.

    >> What does it achieve? Nothing, as far as I can see. Authors will
    >> still be able to write their Haskell code in any encoding they
    >> like. And any compiler can have a front-end script with an option
    >> to specify the encoding used by source files, which simply uses
    >> iconv on the fly to translate.

    Bas> Suppose I give you MyHaskellFile.hs. But before telling you how
    Bas> it's encoded I go gliding (a hobby of mine). Unfortunately I
    Bas> crash my glider and die :-(. Now what encoding option do you
    Bas> give to your front-end script?

Whatever the encoding happens to be. That won't be hard to find out. And
presumably Haskell programmers don't dies so very frequently that it
will become a time-consuming affair.

    >> I think the real place to mandate UTF-8 would be for
    >> Hackage. That's where it matters (an alternative design would be
    >> to add an encoding field in the .cabal file, but I don't think
    >> this has much merit).

    Bas> That would only allow users of Hackage and Cabal to reliably
    Bas> exchange their Haskell files. If we specify it in the report
    Bas> every user can benefit.

There is no benefit that I see. Anyone is free to write Haskell code in
whatever encoding they fancy. Irrespective of what the report says. It's
not going to have the force of law.
-- 
Colin Adams
Preston Lancashire
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