[Hat] Feature request/wish list - library support

[Malcolm Wallace]

patc at cse.unsw.edu.au (Patrick Caldon) wrote:

> I don't know how you update your web pages and so on, but I'd like to
> make a feature request (wish!) for support of all the standard haskell
> libraries.  The couple of times I've tried using Hat this has been an
> issue. ST related libraries are the ones I really want.

Well, Hat does indeed support all the officially "standard" Haskell
libraries, namely those defined by the Haskell'98 Report.  It
additionally supports many of the non-standard libraries contained in
the hierarchical "base" package, but as you discovered, not all of them.

There are good reasons why some (e.g. ST) are not supported - because
they are not portable between compilers.

However, there are plenty of newer non-standard libraries (e.g.
Data.Queue) which are entirely portable, and we have no good excuse for
failing to support them in Hat, except a lack of developer time to chase
them up.

In fact the real failure here is the lack of an easy mechanism for
anyone to add a newer library into Hat's default set.  Automation would
make this so much less of a problem.  But sadly, I do not forsee this
happening in the near future.

> Could you change the error message to read?
> 
> Data.Queue: Does not exist;
>   check http://<something> for a list of supported libraries.

A great idea.

Regards,
    Malcolm