I wish #Haskell had as well thought out an edition system as #Rust. https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/blob/master/text/2052-epochs.md
I think it would handle things like replacing `*` with `Type` quite nicely, for example. There would still be the question of the scope of the standard library, for which I’m unaware of an approach that makes everyone happy all the time, but keeping old code cleanly usable is so, so important, particularly for smaller communities!
@acowley How it is better than 3-ghc-majors policy?
@dpwiz It’s similar, no doubt! I think I just get such good vibes from things like, “To be crystal clear: Rust compilers must support all extant editions, and a crate dependency graph may involve several different editions simultaneously. Thus, editions do not split the ecosystem nor do they break existing code.”
@dpwiz I don’t think LTS snapshots are the same as “Rust compilers must support all extant editions,” but I do really appreciate what LTS snapshots attempt to offer. It needs a lot of work if you want to contemplate patching an old release without the explicit help of a package author, and I don’t know if we have the work force available for that kind of thing in the community.