Malcolm Wallace writes:
> Why might the current name be misleading?
>
> * First, we must ask why IOExts is separate from IO in the first
> place.
>
> * Is the module separate simply because it was late to the
> party? Does it just contain small things that were 'forgotten' or
> not widely supported when the library definition was being
> settled?
You could argue that IORef and IOArray are "extras": there's no reason why
they shouldn't be part of the standard in Haskell 2. The status of
unsafePerformIO and unsafeInterleaveIO is more dubious.
IOExts is mainly "extras", with a few "extensions".
> Thus, a hypothetical module NumExts which simply extends
> the current Numeric with some previously neglected pure functions,
> might be better named NumericExtras until it is incorporated into
> some new library standard.
We already have a NumExts, BTW.
> I solicit the comments of those who care about this relatively trivial
> matter. If no-one else does, I'll just shut up again. :-)
i think the answer is "yes we care", but on the whole I think the benefits
of having a nicer name are outweighed by the hassle of changing it.
Besides, I think we're hoping that all this stuff will be rearranged as part
of Haskell 2 anyway.
Cheers,
Simon
