[Haskell] Announcing Haskell 2010

I'm very proud to announce a new revision of the Haskell language, Haskell 2010. Over the last couple of months the committee has been making final decisions about which extensions should be a part of this revision. The final list is: DoAndIfThenElse HierarchicalModules EmptyDataDeclarations FixityResolution ForeignFunctionInterface LineCommentSyntax PatternGuards RelaxedDependencyAnalysis LanguagePragma NoNPlusKPatterns You can read more about each one, including rationale for and against, on its relevant wiki page, which are linked from the tickets: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/haskell-prime/query?status=new&status=assigned&status=reopened&state=accepted&milestone=Haskell+2010&order=priority Haskell 2010 is a small but significant step on the road that was started by the Haskell' committee 4 years ago, The process has not been a smooth one, and there have been several changes of direction, but the current process is actually producing concrete results that let us move the language forward in positive steps, so I feel we're on the right track. We all owe the current committee a big thank-you for sticking with the process this long: most of them didn't realise the magnitude of what they were signing up for at the beginning. The short list of changes above tells only a small part of the story, there is a wealth of wiki content and mailing-list discussion that future language revisions can draw on. So what now? * We will produce a revised version of the Haskell language report incorporating these changes. That will happen over the next few months. * Compilers can start implementing the changes, and flags to select the Haskell 2010 revision. In GHC we expect to have support in the next major release, i.e. 6.14.1. * Right now, we will start forming a Haskell 2011 committee to mange the process of deciding on changes for next year's revision. The current committee is still discussing how to go about finding a new committee (the plan is to at least have open nominations) but I expect to be able to announce more details very soon. * Everyone can participate in the Haskell 2011 process, by discussing and refining proposals. Information about how to do that is on the Haskell Prime wiki: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/haskell-prime/wiki Remember: this is a community effort. The changes that get adopted in each revision are drawn from the pool of fully-specified proposals, and those proposals can be written by anyone. Thanks, Simon, on behalf of the Haskell 2010 committee