Breaking Changes and Long Term Support Haskell

[Henrik Nilsson]

Hi all,

Jeremy wrote:

 > There seems to be a fair amount of friction between those who want to
 > introduce new features or fix significant historical warts in the base
 > libraries - even if this requires breaking changes - and those who
 > insist on no significant breaking changes in new releases, regardless
 > of the reason or how much warning was given.

With respect, and without commenting on the merits of the proposal that
is then outlined (Long-Term Support Haskell), I don't think this is
an accurate description of the two main positions in the debate at all.

Most of those who have argued against MRP, for example, have made it
very clear that they are not at all against any breaking change. But
they oppose breaking changes to Haskell itself, including central
libraries, as defined by the Haskell report, unless the benefits are
very compelling indeed.

Speaking for myself, I have had to clarify this position a number
of times now, as there has been a tendency by the some proponents of
the proposed changes to suggest that those who disagree are against
all changes, the long term implication being that Haskell would
"stagnate and die".

And in the light of the above, I felt compelled to clarify this
position again.

It's not about no more changes ever. It is about ensuring that
changes are truly worthwhile and have wide support.

Best,

/Henrik

-- 
Henrik Nilsson
School of Computer Science
The University of Nottingham
nhn at cs.nott.ac.uk




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