[Haskell] Re: [Haskell-cafe] Interest in helping w/ Haskell standard

[Sebastian Sylvan]

On 10/13/05, Isaac Jones <ijones at syntaxpolice.org> wrote:
> At the end of the Haskell Workshop at ICFP, we had the traditional
> "Future of Haskell" discussion (chaired by Andres Loeh). One of the
> main topics was the perceived need of a new standard, because the
> Haskell 98 standard is quite old already, and Haskell has evolved in
> the meantime, leading to a situation where almost none of the actually
> existing Haskell programs is according to the 98 standard. No clear
> opinion was visible on what form a new standard would take. There was,
> however, considerable support for the idea to standardize an
> incremental and moderate extension to Haskell 98 (working name
> "Haskell 06" or "Industrial Haskell"). This effort would then be
> separate from discussion about the Real Next Version (dubbed "Haskell
> 2").
>
> John Launchbury asked for a show of hands of those who would be
> interested in helping out with the "Haskell 06" standard.  I think
> "helping" means "willing to spend a non-trivial amount of time".  That
> is, it's pretty well expected that most Haskellers will be willing to
> contribute to discussion on the mailing lists, but we're trying to get
> a list of those who want to take it to the next level.  If you raised
> your hand, or if you think this describes you, please email John
> Launchbury at john at galois.com.
>

I'm wondering what "incremental and moderate" extension means?
Does it mean "completely backwards compatible" or can it mean
completely new features including ones which subsume existing ones
(I'm specifically interested in seeing SPJ's records proposal
included, and a new module system).

I'd also like to point out the haskell wiki page:

http://www.haskell.org/hawiki/HaskellOhSix

Which already contain some desired features. Perhaps a running summary
of "definate", "maybe", and "not until Haskell 2" features could be
kept there as discussions progress?

/S

--
Sebastian Sylvan
+46(0)736-818655
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