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

[Lennart Augustsson]

I'm sorry for putting IsString into Base like that.
Like Ian I don't know where else it should go, and since the
module is named GHC.Base the name seems to indicate that
what is in it is for GHC, so I didn't think it needed to
have any #ifdef around it.
Would some #ifdef somewhere be appropriate?

	-- Lennart

On Jan 24, 2007, at 08:15 , Ian Lynagh wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 23, 2007 at 06:43:22PM +0000, Duncan Coutts wrote:
>> On Tue, 2007-01-23 at 10:38 -0800, Ross Paterson 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'm cc'ing the libraries  
>> list.
>
> For those who haven't been following, this comes from a new GHC
> extension that means string literals like "foo" have type (IsString  
> a =>
> a) rather than String. This is analogous to (5 :: Num a => a) in  
> Haskell
> 98.
>
> This uses a new class
>
>     class IsString a where
>         fromString :: String -> a
>
> which is defined in GHC.Base and re-exported by the Prelude.
>
> Letting this Prelude change through was my fault - for some reason I
> didn't notice it, or it didn't register, or something.
>
> That said, I'm not sure where else I'd put it. GHC.Exts is the only
> place I can think of that it vaguely belongs, but the class itself is
> entirely portable, so this doesn't feel right to me.
>
> Also, in GHC(-fglasgow-exts) the class will appear in types with no
> other modules loaded. If the extension was in the language then I  
> would
> certainly expect the class to be in the Prelude.
>
> When I last asked Isaac about it, it hadn't beeen decided how much
> Haskell' will say about libraries. I can't remember if I've said  
> this in
> public before, but my opinion is that it should say as little as
> possible; we have recently been able to make a number of  
> improvements to
> the base libraries as the move to hierarchical libraries has meant  
> that
> the Haskell 98 standard hasn't tied our hands, and I think it would  
> be a
> mistake to tie them again with Haskell'. Thus I think the addition of
> such a class, even to the Prelude, should be OK for Haskell'. Of  
> course,
> concensus may not agree with me, and it's also possible there will be
> releases of implementations using the HEAD branch of the base packages
> before Haskell' is done.
>
>
> So to summarise, it was a mistake to let it in without discussion;
> sorry. But my opinion is that it should be there (for all
> implementations) anyway once we are making Haskell'  
> implementations, and
> I don't know where to put it in the meantime.
>
>
> Thanks
> Ian