Okay - I can see that with lazy semantics this might not be a problem... What happens withI'm not sure I understand what problem you think there is. Are the inits you're talking about module inits? If so, I don't think there's a problem, for several reasons.
The idea under discussion is that a top level (x <- newThing) should
be lazy, (no action at all occurs until value of x is demanded). IOW,
it's exactly the same as the current unsafePerformIO hack, but not unsafe
because the compiler knows the semantics. So there is no implied "module initialisation"
the second problem: That where module B uses A internally and C uses A internally, then
I write a new module that tries to use B & C together... This potentially breaks B & C. I think
you need the extra restriction that the top level '<-' bindings must not be exported. So where
does that leave us.
Top level inits are safe (I think) iff:
- They are lazy (the definition only happens when required)
- They contain only a subset of IO actions - namely those concerned
with name creation within Haskell that don't actually do any IO.
- They are not exportable from the module that contains them.I think that covers it... have I forgotten anything?
Keean.
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