template-haskell depends on packedstring

[Duncan Coutts]

On Sun, 2008-11-23 at 22:53 -0500, Gwern Branwen wrote:
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> So I was trying to compile lambdabot with cabal-install. Lambdabot
> uses Template Haskell  for generating some boilerplate, and it was a
> failed dependency. Template Haskell uses packedstring for...
> something... and packedstring was a failed dependency:
> Data/PackedString.hs:83:7:
>     Could not find module `Data.Data':
>       it is a member of package base, which is hidden
> 
> Now this is a problem, but it's not the problem I am interested in. I
> am interested in: why is template-haskell using packedstring? Wasn't
> packedstring obsoleted years ago?

Yes.

The question is if one should break the TH api just to remove this
deprecated dependency. Especially when it is slated to be replaced with
an improved unicode packed string type in the future.

So either we break it once, or twice.

Duncan