Why are strings linked lists?

[Wojtek Moczydlowski]

> As a matter of pure speculation, how big an impact would it have if, in
> the next "version" of Haskell, Strings were represented as opaque types
> with appropriate functions to convert to and from [Char]?  Would there be
> rioting in the streets?
>
> Andrew Bromage

I would complain. I don't care much about efficiency (though it still
bothers me that I don't have an answer yet to the
memory leak I posted some time ago), and the easiness of dealing with
strings as lists is quite important to me. Expliciting packing and unpacking
would be an incovenience.

Wojtek