[Yhc] Some suggested changes to Yhc.Core

Thomas Shackell shackell at cs.york.ac.uk
Tue Aug 7 07:27:10 EDT 2007


Malcolm Wallace wrote:
> Actually, I think it would be better just to add the single new name
> "javascript".  It's pretty easy, and allows us to represent the
> convention using an enumerated type internally, rather than just a
> String.  Types are one of the reasons we like Haskell, aren't they?

I disagree :-) Enumerated types are a sensible choice for a closed set 
of values, but the possible calling conventions that people might want 
when using Yhc Core as a back-end is not a closed set.

I think it would be a really handy feature that people implementing 
their own back-ends for Yhc Core can define and use their own calling 
conventions without having to modify the yhc compiler at all. I feel 
that losing a very small amount of type safety is a price well worth 
paying for this :-)

The loss is particularly minimal because there is already an (Other 
String) calling convention defined in Syntax.hs ;-)

Cheers


Tom


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