package mounting

[Simon Marlow]

On 23 June 2005 10:14, Frederik Eaton wrote:

> It looks like there's been a bit of recent discussion regarding module
> and package namespaces. There is a certain possible design feature
> that I don't think has been mentioned yet, that I think would be very
> helpful, so I thought I should at least bring it up.

This idea has been raised before, but it was a while back, and we called
it "grafting".  Here's the start of the thread, which went on for quite
some time:

  http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/libraries/2003-August/001310.html

I suspect that various opinions raised in that thread have now changed
(mine included).

I'm not sure I can succinctly describe why the idea wasn't adopted - I
think it is a combination of the complexity it introduces in the
implementations, the feeling that the power to weight ratio is a little
too low, and the fact that at the time there were many other issues to
resolve in the packaging system without considering grafting.  As I
said, opinions may have changed, and it might be worthwhile to discuss
this again.

Cheers,
	Simon