| 1 | | Suggestions should go under the heading that best describes the reasons they should be included. |
| | 1 | = New Library Candidates = |
| | 2 | |
| | 3 | Though there is a collection of libraries shared by all implementations, we might still wish to standardize some libraries, for the following reasons: |
| | 4 | |
| | 5 | * a standard library might have specifications of functions, while some implementations may be optimized. |
| | 6 | |
| | 7 | * stability of interfaces. |
| | 8 | |
| | 9 | The following headings are suggested criteria for standard libraries. |
| | 10 | Candidates should go under the heading that best describes the reasons they should be included. |
| 23 | | |
| 24 | | == On the importance of standardizing libraries == |
| 25 | | |
| 26 | | * Is there a point to have a library codified in the standard when the fptools library is the de-facto standard anyway? Does it make a practical difference for anyone? |
| 27 | | |
| 28 | | I think so. A library that's in the standard might have specifications of functions. Thus different implementations of the library can be compared w.r.t. a definitive |
| 29 | | specification. Another point is stability. For example, the step from GHC 6.2 to GHC 6.4 caused quite a few library interfaces to change incompatibly. |
| 30 | | As a result, programs didn't compile any longer. On the other hand, the Haskell-98-standard libs are still supported. I think we should strive for stability of library |
| 31 | | interfaces. Whether it has to be by including libraries into the standard or by other means, I don't know. -- Andres |
