[Haskell-cafe] Why the Prelude must die

[Chris Eidhof]

On Mar 24, 2007, at 2:36 AM, Sebastian Sylvan wrote:

> On 3/24/07, Chris Eidhof <chris at eidhof.nl> wrote:
>> > Given all these issues, I consider the only reasonable option is to
>> > discard the Prelude entirely.  There will be no magic modules.
>> > Everything will be an ordinary library.  HOFs like (.) are  
>> available
>> > from Control.Function.  List ops come from Data.List.  Any general
>> > abstractions can be added in abstract Sequence, Monad, etc.  
>> modules.
>> > Haskell will regain the kind of organic evolution whose lack
>> > currently causes Haskell to lose its lead over Python et al by the
>> > day.
>> I basically agree with a lot of the things you say. The only thing
>> is: it's so convenient to have the Prelude. I can just start writing
>> my haskell programs and don't have to worry about all kinds of
>> imports. And you'll end up being repetitive: you'll import (.) and
>> stuff like that in _every_ file. Yeah, this will definitely be more
>> modular, but if we go for it, it's going to be so much more (tedious)
>> work to create a new program.
>
> The solution is simple:
>
> * If there is a "module M where" clause in the beginning of the file,
> then it's a "proper" module and shouldn't import the Prelude.
> * If there is no module declaration then it's a "quick'n dirty script"
> and should have the Prelude implicitly imported.
> * Interactive interpreters should probably import the Prelude.
So if I'm writing a script, which has been working, then import  
Control.Monad, it all suddenly stops working?

I also think that you want to minimize the differences between an  
interpreted (interactive) version and a compiled version. It would be  
very weird for first-time users if their scripts work in ghci but  
break when they compile them.

I'm sorry for being so negative. I like the idea, but I don't like it  
from a newbie-standpoint. The thing is: this is mostly handy for  
power-users, maybe we should do it for power-users only? We can still  
change the prelude to have no more code in there, but make it only a  
bunch of imports?

-chris