Proposal: add conversion functions to Data.Fixed.

[Herbert Valerio Riedel]

Edward Kmett <ekmett at gmail.com> writes:

> To be frank, I would just rather have access to the constructor to Fixed.
>
> It honestly strikes me as silly to have to pay for a division and/or
> multiplication every time I want to access one.
>
> There in an ideological distinction being maintained here about the one
> true usage pattern that has forced me to reimplement Data.Fixed in my own
> code to avoid the overhead. =(

Fwiw, I've sometimes wanted to have 'Int' based fixed-precision
arithmetic, and the current Data.Fixed allows only for "big-num" based
fixed-precision types.

Just a thought: Why does Data.Fixed have to be in 'base' anyway if the
interface doesn't seem to be agreed upon by everyone? Can't we split it
off into a separate package where it can more easily evolve into a
richer API?

I've done a quick head-count over the ~4600 packages on hackage
w.r.t. which import Data.Fixed, and I found the 45 packages below which
directly import it. So splitting Data.Fixed from 'base' would affect
only about 1% of packages...

 Chart-0.16
 collada-output-0.6
 complex-generic-0.1.1
 configurator-0.2.0.1
 deepseq-1.3.0.1
 DisTract-0.2.5
 ebeats-0.1.0
 esotericbot-0.0.6
 fixed-point-0.5.0.1
 gearbox-1.0.0.1
 Geodetic-0.4
 gluturtle-0.0.56
 gps-1.1
 GPX-0.7.0
 has-0.5.0.1
 haskell-platform-test-2010.2.0.0
 HDBC-2.3.1.1
 hsc3-0.12
 husk-scheme-3.6
 lambdabot-4.2.3.3
 network-bitcoin-1.0.1
 Noise-1.0.5
 penny-lib-0.4.0.0
 postgresql-simple-0.2.4.1
 propane-0.1
 QuickCheck-2.5.1.1
 quickcheck-instances-0.3.1
 random-extras-0.19
 random-fu-0.2.3.1
 remote-0.1.1
 repr-0.4.1.3
 RNAwolf-0.4.0.0
 rsagl-0.6.0.1
 rsagl-math-0.6.0.1
 safecopy-0.7.1
 sindre-0.4
 tamarin-prover-0.8.2.1
 time-1.4.0.1
 time-http-0.5
 time-lens-0.3
 timeparsers-0.3.2
 time-w3c-0.1.0.1
 webdriver-0.4
 wxturtle-0.0.1
 xturtle-0.1.11


cheers,
  hvr