Quo vadis?

Carter Schonwald carter.schonwald at gmail.com
Sat Oct 6 22:54:53 UTC 2018


agreed...

i think theres still room for the current for the current committee to
succeed (though depending on ambitions it should maybe slide into being
2022 standard perhaps?)

I cant speak for other members, but i'm still hopeful about putting
together some of the language improvements to the standard in time for
2020, life and other commitments (in addition to living) permitting.

I do think that its ultimately a social / communal activity, and humans are
best motivated when thats in the clear.
So the more progress some folks make, the more motivated one way or another
other folks will be!



On Fri, Oct 5, 2018 at 1:05 PM Simon Peyton Jones via Haskell-prime <
haskell-prime at haskell.org> wrote:

> I think the difficulty has always been in finding enough people who are
>
> * Well-informed and well-qualified
> * Willing to spend the time to standardise language features
>
> GHC does not help the situation: it's a de-facto standard, which reduces
> the incentives to spend time in standardisation.
>
> I don’t think we should blame anyone for not wanting to invest this time
> -- no shame here.  It is a very significant commitment, as I know from
> editing the Haskell 98 report and the incentives are weak.  Because of
> that, I am not very optimistic about finding such a group -- we have been
> abortively trying for several years.
>
> If we want to change that, the first thing is to build a case that greater
> standardisation is not just an "abstract good" that we all subscribe to,
> but something whose lack is holding us back.
>
> Simon
>
> |  -----Original Message-----
> |  From: Haskell-prime <haskell-prime-bounces at haskell.org> On Behalf Of
> |  Mario Blaževic
> |  Sent: 05 October 2018 17:47
> |  To: haskell-prime at haskell.org
> |  Subject: Re: Quo vadis?
> |
> |  On 2018-10-05 09:10 AM, Henrik Nilsson wrote:
> |  > Hi,
> |  >
> |  > On 10/05/2018 01:20 PM, Mario Blažević wrote:
> |  >>      I hereby propose we formally disband the present Haskell 2020
> |  >> committee. Our performance has been so dismal
> |  >
> |  > It has.
> |  >
> |  > And I should apologise in particular: I've just had far less time than
> |  > I thought over the past year for a variety of reasons.
> |  >
> |  >> that I feel this is the
> |  >> only course of action that gives Haskell 2020 any chance of fruition.
> |  >> A new committee could then be formed with some more dedicated
> |  membership.
> |  >
> |  > I'm less convinced about that, though. I believe those who signed up
> |  > for H2020 actually are people who believe in the value of an updated
> |  > standard and has core expertise to make it happen.
> |
> |       Regarding the beliefs, if we really represent the most zealous
> group
> |  of Haskell enthusiasts, I have to say the community is in deep trouble.
> I
> |  have no evidence, but I can only hope you're wrong.
> |
> |       As for the expertise, my impression is that *everybody* who self-
> |  nominated for the committee got accepted. My own self-nomination e-mail
> |  [1] explicitly said that
> |
> |
> |  > The main reason I'm applying is because I'm afraid that the commitee
> |  > might disband like the previous one. If there are enough members
> |  > already, feel free to ignore my nomination.
> |
> |  Yet I'm in. This was not a high bar to clear.
> |
> |
> |  > I can't see how giving up and forming a new group would speed things
> |  > up or even increase the chance of success.
> |
> |       I was kinda hoping for a Simon ex machina, where a few universally-
> |  accepted members of the community hand-pick a new committee.
> |  Alternatively, we could come up with some stricter criteria for the next
> |  committee before we disband but that assumes we can even get a quorum.
> |
> |       Lest I'm suspected of some Machiavellian plot, let me be clear that
> |  I refuse to be a part of the next committee, if my proposal should be
> |  accepted. Honestly I feel that all members of the present committee with
> |  any sense of shame should recuse themselves as well, but that's not up
> to
> |  me.
> |
> |
> |  > Instead, what about focusing on identifying a couple of things that
> |  > absolutely would have to be in H2020 to make a new standard
> |  > worthwhile, like multi-parameter type classes, possibly GADTs, then
> |  > figure out what else is needed to support that (like what Anthony
> |  > Clayden sketched), and with that as a basis, find out exactly what
> |  > technical problems, if any, are hindering progress?
> |  >
> |  > If this could be neatly summarized, then we'd actually be in a
> |  > position to make some progress.
> |
> |       That is much the plan we agreed on over a year ago during ICFP
> 2018.
> |  The activity since then is plain to see.
> |
> |
> |  [1]
> |  http://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-prime/2015-
> |  September/003939.html
> |
> |  _______________________________________________
> |  Haskell-prime mailing list
> |  Haskell-prime at haskell.org
> |  http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-prime
> _______________________________________________
> Haskell-prime mailing list
> Haskell-prime at haskell.org
> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-prime
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-prime/attachments/20181006/ad2e4922/attachment.html>


More information about the Haskell-prime mailing list