[Haskell] Improvements to GHC

[Stefan Karrmann]

My 2 cents:

John Lask (Thu, Nov 17, 2005 at 08:57:52AM +1030):
> I would like to sound out the Haskell community on what the feeling are 
> most desirable to improve the "commerciality" (i.e. its general use) of ghc 
> and Haskell in general (as distinct from feature set)
> 
> 3) Macro / conditional compilation / compiler meta language / additional 
> binding forms
>    These are perhaps distinct issues but can be discussed together.
>    The prevalent use of #ifdef and the cpp is indicative of the general 
> need to have some standard means by
>    which differences between compilers ghc/hugs/nhc can be accommodated for 
> in the source code.
>    To date this issue has not been tackled in any meaningful way, perhaps 
> we can continue
>     to use cpp but for the sake of portability
> 
>     A means of defining additional binding forms would be nice as it would 
> further facilitate embedded dsl
>     for which Haskell is pre-eminent, and which use is a great motivator 
> for venturing into
>     Haskell in the first place.

The macro languages tend to become more and more complex over time.
Eventually, you have two complex languages. First, a Haskell Macro
Language, second Haskell.

Why can we not use staging like in Omega, cf. [1], or Template Haskell?
Maybe Haskell itself can generate the compiler and system specific source?

[1] http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~sheard/Omega/index.html

Regards,
-- 
Stefan Karrmann