Luke Boswell (Apr 14 2023 at 09:06): Luke Boswell (Apr 14 2023 at 09:06):Just a random thought, I was typing out an Interface module header and accidentally thought it was exports but then realised it is exposes. I wonder if there is a story behind using exposes? I feel like exports is the antonym for imports and would also be a viable option here.
Anton (Apr 14 2023 at 09:12):I wonder if there is a story behind using exposes?
I think we inherited it from exposing in elm. exports could work just as well but I have no real favorite out of those two options.
Richard Feldman (Apr 14 2023 at 11:59):yeah they're different though
Richard Feldman (Apr 14 2023 at 12:00):like in conversations it makes more sense to say "this module doesn't expose that" than "this module doesn't export that"
Richard Feldman (Apr 14 2023 at 12:01):because the key thing about something not being (exposed/exported) is that it's hidden
Richard Feldman (Apr 14 2023 at 12:01):and hidden things are not exposed, but "exported" doesn't really have to do with things being hidden :big_smile:
Richard Feldman (Apr 14 2023 at 12:01):I could see an argument for uses over imports
Kevin Gillette (Apr 15 2023 at 01:41):uses has the nice properties that: 1) it's shorter than imports, and 2) it seems less likely to be useful as an identifier (i.e. imports would be a reasonable name for a List if it weren't already reserved as a keyword).
I do agree with @Luke Boswell that exports is the naturally paired inverse of imports; if you import something, it implies that something else is exporting that thing (otherwise, it's not actually an import... at best you're returning with "salvage" from international waters :wink:)
Richard Feldman (Apr 15 2023 at 01:47):I agree that it's the natural converse of imports, I just don't think that's as important as the keyword giving the right intuitions about how it should be used :big_smile:
Kevin Gillette (Apr 15 2023 at 01:53):Interesting, gotcha
Last updated: Jun 16 2026 at 16:19 UTC