[Haskell] Re: [Haskell-cafe] Please check your dependencies on fgl

[Ivan Lazar Miljenovic]

Ian Lynagh <igloo at earth.li> writes:

> On Mon, Jun 07, 2010 at 11:50:44AM -0700, Donald Bruce Stewart wrote:
>
>> A complete rewrite with a new maintainer: fgl-awesome
>
> In 10 years time, we don't want to have
>     fgl
>     fgl-awesome
>     fgl-great
>     fgl-joe
> which all do the same thing, and have an unclear relationship to each
> other.

Definitely (though hopefully we wouldn't pick names like "fgl-awesome"
anyway...).

> I think the important question is: Once the new FGL is finished, will
> there be a good reason (other than backwards compatibility) for people
> to use the current FGL?
>
> If yes, then different names should be used. Otherwise, no matter how
> different the API is, keeping the same name is the right thing to do.

And this is why we're going to request the community's input on our API
design: to try and avoid the situation where there's a specific reason
to keep using the old one.

As it stands, the only real advantage that I can think of is that the
new version uses extensions, the old version doesn't (and hence is more
compatible).

> So if there is consensus that the new design is a better fgl, I think it
> ought to keep the name.

Which is what we're trying to build (the consensus, that is).

Don has started a wiki page with the arguments here, and I've already
added my 2c:
http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Libraries/WhenToRewriteOrRename

-- 
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
Ivan.Miljenovic at gmail.com
IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com