[mercury-users] Modules, Submodules and Instances.

[David Glen JEFFERY]

On 29-Jan-1999, Ralph Becket <rwab1 at cam.sri.com> wrote:
> 
> (1) MODULE QUALIFIERS
> 
> I've noticed a drift from `name__' as a module qualifier to `name:' -
> personally I find the former easier on the eyes, but oh well.  ':' is
> yukky, '.' is nice.  How long will '__' stick around?  Will '.' ever
> make it in?

AFAIK, '__' will stay around for ever, but ':' is deprecated. I'm fairly
sure that the intention is for '.' to be implemented one of these days...
fjh may be able to add more.

> (2) TYPECLASS INSTANCES
> 
> Say I want to export a type t as an instance of some typeclass c.
> Currently I have to do something like
> 
> 	[...]
> 
> But here I'm releasing information about the implementation of t to
> the outside world.  Now, this is in the same class of minor crime as
> the mode problem, but I wonder whether it would really be that much
> harder to get the compiler to handle putting
> 	:- instance c(t).
> in the interface and requiring
> 	:- instance c(t) where [...].
> in the implementation.  

You are quite correct. I certainly plan on adding this before the next release.

> (3) SUBMODULES - THE BIGGY
> 
> The language reference is somewhat cryptic on the matter of submodules

I'll leave that one for Fergus (the human language reference manual ;-) )
to answer.

> p.s. Interestingly, this morning I was sober and everything was going
> wrong, but now I'm a up to the end of a post-meeting bottle-o-plonk
> and things are working much better.  There's a lesson in here
> somewhere.

I think there's something in that for all of us.


dgj
-- 
David Jeffery (dgj at cs.mu.oz.au) |  Marge: Homer, is this how you pictured
PhD student,                    |         married life?
Dept. of Comp. Sci. & Soft. Eng.|  Homer: Yup, pretty much... except we
The University of Melbourne     |         drove around in a van solving
Australia                       |         mysteries.