Stream: ideas

Topic: new module header

Anton (Jul 04 2023 at 10:42):

In response to this topic.

Instead of:

module [Request, Response, req]

import Json
import Unicode as Uc
import [Req, Resp] from InternalHttp
import [CodePoint, first] from CodePoint as Cp
import foo : Str from "some-file.txt"

I would prefer

module
    exposes [
        Request, Response, req
    ]
    imports [
        Json,
        Unicode as Uc,
        InternalHttp.{ Req, Resp },
        (CodePoint as Cp).{ CodePoint, first },
        "some-file.txt" as foo : Str,
    ]

While also allowing inline import, because this looks significantly cleaner.

Richard Feldman (Jul 04 2023 at 11:19):

interesting! I generally default to "one way to do it" but maybe this is so common that it's worth it?

I'm curious what others think!

Ajai Nelson (Jul 04 2023 at 16:35):

My biggest concern with the import ... from syntax is that it seems backwards and inconsistent to me. I feel like the module name should come before its members. Also, if you don't specify the module name first, I don't think autocomplete will know where to look for members when you're first typing out the import.

Brendan Hansknecht (Jul 04 2023 at 17:00):

We always could use the Something.{ SubThing } syntax with the individual import lines.

Richard Feldman (Jul 04 2023 at 17:11):

that doesn't work well with the WIP proposal though :sweat_smile:

Richard Feldman (Jul 04 2023 at 17:15):

I had this as import Foo exposing [Bar, Baz] previously, like how Elm does it

Richard Feldman (Jul 04 2023 at 17:16):

thoughts on that?

Ajai Nelson (Jul 04 2023 at 17:16):

I'm good with that

Anton (Jul 04 2023 at 17:28):

I'd still prefer it with the imports list but the Foo exposing [Bar, Baz]part is good for me as well

Brendan Hansknecht (Jul 04 2023 at 19:25):

Personally, I am not a fan of the import list as part of the header if we also have an import statement. I prefer to have one or the other. Since the import statement specifically enables extra wanted functionality, I would argue we should only support that.

Anton (Jul 05 2023 at 09:53):

Uhu, it's a reasonable choice, I could live with it :p

Last updated: Jun 16 2026 at 16:19 UTC