The Future of Haskell discussion at the Haskell Workshop

[Ketil Z. Malde]

Johannes Waldmann <joe@informatik.uni-leipzig.de> writes:

> What about "ad-hoc overloading" (allowing visible entities to share names,
> as long as they can be distinugished by their typing).

> This is orthogonal to the "proper records" issue (?)
> but it might improve the current situtation (?)
> and it seems backward-compatible (?)

Yes.  Don't get me wrong; please go and define "proper records",
improve the record system accordingly, adapt and implement. 

I just wanted to correct the impression that there were no complaints
about broken backwards compatibility.  Because it is - or at least, it
can be - a real problem.

Sometimes it has to be done in order to set things right, but it
shouldn't be done lightly.

There is also the issue of weighing down the language with features
and extensions.  It may give you more expressive power, but it also
makes the language harder to master, and programs more difficult to
maintain. 

> Of course this would need an extension of the type checker

Doesn't worry me overly, it is Somebody Else's Problem :-)

-kzm
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants