Cabal vs Haskell [sic]

[Malcolm Wallace]

"S. Alexander Jacobson" <alex at alexjacobson.com> writes:

> With Haskell, the 
> user select the modules to be used to resolve import statements. 
> With Cabal, the author makes the selection (e.g. the build-depends 
> tag).  With Haskell, dependencies are between modules.  With Cabal, 
> they are between packages.

I don't think that is strictly true - or at least it is true only of the
current ghc implementation.  In nhc98 at the moment, if package foo
build-depends on package bar, then the only requirement is that
interface files for bar must be available when foo is built.  You can
change the implementation of bar at any time after that with no dire
consequences, provided only that the interface has not changed.

Regards,
    Malcolm