patch applied (packages/base): IsString is GHC-only (so why is it in the Prelude?)

[Malcolm Wallace]

Duncan Coutts <duncan.coutts at worc.ox.ac.uk> wrote:

> > Tue Jan 23 10:30:07 PST 2007  Ross Paterson <ross at soi.city.ac.uk>
> >   * IsString is GHC-only (so why is it in the Prelude?)
> 
> Yes, can we please have a discussion about what's going on here.
> Changes to the base library are supposed to go via the libraries
> review process. I'm not complaining that we slipped up, I just want to
> make sure people can have a chance to comment.

I agree that this development is strange.  The Prelude module in base is
supposed to export exactly and only the Haskell'98-specified Prelude.
There should be no proposed extensions in there, especially if they are
compiler-specific.  There are lots of other places an extension can
live, e.g. GHC.Base

[ Actually, to be honest I'm not quite sure why the Prelude module lives
  in the base package, rather than the haskell98 package?  The same
  question applies to the Numeric module. ]

Regards,
    Malcolm