RE: Fixing imports for and namespaces (was: Simon's H98 Notes)

[Simon Peyton-Jones]

> That being said, if Haskell simply added support for hierarchical
> namespace and a standard path convention for finding 
> libraries and source,
> I would be ecstatic.  Better scoping, nicer import operators, and more
> visibility control are just bonus.

Personally I'm quite sympathetic to the hierarchical namespace suggestion,
though I'm less convinced by some of the other mechanisms you propose.
But this is all Haskell 2 stuff.  It is far to late to change Haskell 98's
module system, not if we're going to be done by Xmas.  Which we are.

The same goes for the message that started this thread about the
interaction of the '.' notation for qualified names and the '..' notation
for enumerations.  I certainly agree it's infelicitous.  But I don't intend
to change the notation for qualified names for Haskell 98.

Simon

PS: Incidentally, ordinary defintions suffice for renaming
values --- e.g.  f = Foo.g --- but not constructors or classes.