Drastic Prelude changes imminent

[Simon Peyton Jones]

|  I think that _if_ there had been a better organized, more clarifying
|  discussion on the scope of BBP earlier (one was promised after Neil
|  raised concerns, but I think it fell by the wayside), then we might
|  not be in this boat.
|  
|  Now, whatever the “right” thing is eventually, it does feel like we
|  need to apply brakes until people can settle in further. I know people
|  will be disappointed no matter what happens, and they will feel this
|  stuff has moved slowly enough for long enough.
|  
|  However, without having had that discussion, I don’t see how we can
|  move forward.
|  
|  The proposal Lennart and Simon have therefore seems good and
|  necessary, save for the issue of how BBP infects Data.List in
|  particular as well.

Just to be clear, this isn't my proposal: it's from Lennart and Neil.  They did come to see me; I had indeed entirely missed the fact that the Prelude was changing so much; I did encourage them to explicitly and clearly air their concerns.  But I don't feel ready to take a personal position on how best to move forward.

I very much value what the Core Libraries Committee does.  Good libraries are a foundational component of a language and, although it's not very glamourous, working on making the libraries (particularly the core ones) work smoothly is incredibly valuable.  So we all owe huge thank you to the Core Libraries Committee.

It's unfortunate that all this has arisen so late in the 7.10 release cycle.  Perhaps I should have been paying more attention.  Perhaps the CLC should have published the proposal, and with clearer signposting.  Perhaps Lennart and Neil should have been more vocal earlier. But it's unproductive to discuss who to blame, and we probably all carry some responsibility.  (We might want to learn some lessons for the future, though; one being that changes to the Prelude need particular care and advertising.)

More important is what to do next.  Let's talk about how to resolve this during this week.  A small group of us (including Edward K and Lennart) plan to have a Skype call on Monday.  But the more we have a clear set of alternatives, the better.

Simon