Miguel Mitrofanov wrote: > Jon Fairbairn wrote on 20.04.2009 13:59: >> Achim Schneider <bars...@web.de> writes: >> >>> Jon Fairbairn <jon.fairba...@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote: >>> >>>> a...@cs.uu.nl writes: >>>> >>>>> Utrecht Haskell Compiler -- first release, version 1.0.0 >>>>> ======================================================== >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> The UHC team is happy to announce the first public release of the >>>>> Utrecht Haskell Compiler (UHC). UHC supports almost all Haskell98 >>>>> features >>>> Why? Is there something about Haskell 98 that's hard to implement? >>>> >>> Insanity. I doubt anyone is going to miss n+k patterns: >> >> That (taken with the followup from Richard O'Keefe saying he does use >> them) underlines my point, really. What follows is specific to >> Haskell, but the general point applies to most languages I've >> encountered. >> >> I have no love for n+k patterns, but they are part of >> Haskell98 -- and were the subject of protracted arguments for and >> against them before the Report was finished (I was against them, if I >> remember correctly). Any implementation claiming to be of Haskell98 >> should have them, whether or not the implementor likes them, because >> otherwise someone will come along with a valid Haskell98 programme >> and it won't compile, so they'll have to hack it around. This sort of >> thing (and resulting #ifdef all over the place) wastes far more >> programmer time in the end (assuming the compiler becomes popular) >> than it would take to implement the feature. >> >> It's not an implementor's place to make such decisions -- they can >> legitimately say "this feature sucks" and tell the next Haskell >> committee so. If they care enough about it, they can lobby or get on >> that next committee, but the arguments for n+k patterns /in >> Haskell98/ were done long ago. >> >> > I disagree. First of all, UHC states explicitly that some features > are not supported (and probably never would be). Secondly, it seems > like almost nobody uses (n+k)-patterns, and when they are used, they > make the code less readable; so it's good NOT to support them, in > order to make programmers avoid them as much as possible. I don't > think #ifdef's would be really "all over the place"; it's more likely > that a minor refactoring would take place so that (n+k)-patterns > would disappear.
In addition, (n+k) patterns will be removed from the standard as soon as the Haskell prime process produces a new one, so people who want to make their code support that new standard should be removing them right now. Ganesh =============================================================================== Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://www.credit-suisse.com/legal/en/disclaimer_email_ib.html =============================================================================== _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe