Module reexports at the package level

[Joachim Breitner]

Hi,

Am Dienstag, den 15.10.2013, 09:50 +0200 schrieb Simon Marlow:
> > There is an alternative solution to this: Use re-exporting stub modules
> > (as you suggest), but make GHC more liberal when multiple modules of the
> > same name are important: E.g.
> >   * ignore one if it exports precisely the same set of names and values, or
> >   * if it exports a subset, or even
> >   * only complain if an ambiguous _name_ is used from the module, and do
> >     not complain if a name is used that is exported only by one Data.Foo,
> >     or is exported by both, but referring to the same symbol.
> > These have their merits (more powerful), but can also be abused more, so
> > but I prefer the original, less ad-hoc and more declarative approach.
> 
> The third option sounds reasonable, as a generalisation of the way 
> ambiguous identifiers are currently handled.  In fact, if we want to 
> re-export only a subset of the original module, then we have to use a 
> stub (rather than re-exporting at the package level), and so we end up 
> needing this change to ambiguity checking.
> 
> Re-exporting a subset of another module is common.  If we're providing 
> an old API in terms of a new one, each of the modules of the old API 
> will re-export the subset of the new API that corresponds to the old API.

you really think so? I was not bold enough to suggest that, but OTOH
many nice things can be done with it (and many non-nice).

For example, if we’d implement that, it means that packages can start to
provide a module named "Prelude" to automatically and conveniently amend
the default imports.

While it would definitely solve my itch, I’m a bit worried that it would
open the floodgates to quite messy cross-package modules.


Greetings,
Joachim

-- 
Joachim “nomeata” Breitner
  mail at joachim-breitner.de • http://www.joachim-breitner.de/
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  Debian Developer: nomeata at debian.org
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