From 63c5eeacdbde0e4e2b20801662f2d01bd6f7cbf9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Guest0x0 <guest0x0@outlook.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2023 18:31:37 +0800
Subject: [PATCH] proposal for new IO API

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 RFCs/new-IO-API.md | 49 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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 create mode 100644 RFCs/new-IO-API.md

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+# new IO API
+
+## Moonbit's current IO API
+Currently, the most commonly used IO APIs of Moonbit is:
+```go
+fn print[X: Show](x: X) {
+  print_string(x.to_string())
+}
+fn println[X: Show](x: X) {
+  print_string(x.to_string())
+  print_string("\n")
+}
+```
+where:
+```go
+interface Show {
+  to_string(Self) -> String
+}
+```
+
+## Problems with current API
+The current API calls `to_string` unconditionally,
+however, this would cause problems when printing `String` itself:
+
+- we want `println((s : String))` to output `s` itself
+- when we print a data types containing string fields,
+for example in `derive(Show)`,
+we want the strings to be printed with double quotes
+
+To have correct `println` on `String`s, `to_string` of `String` must return the string itself.
+To have correct derived `Show` implementation, we want `to_string` of `String` to add double quotes.
+These two requirements are contradictory.
+
+Worse, we cannot hack deriver of `Show` to treat `String` specially.
+Because for types like `struct T[X] { x: X }`,
+we want their derived `Show` to work correctly when `X` is instantiated to `String`.
+So the current IO API cannot fulfill both requirements (`println` and `Show`) at the same time.
+
+In essence, `String` serves two purpose in the language:
+as the final representation of things to be printed (don't want double quotes),
+and as a normal data type (need double quotes).
+The current API does not distinguish between these two uses of `String`, which is the cause of the problem.
+
+## The proposed new IO API
+
+- rename the interface `Show` to `Debug` to make its purpose clearer.
+Also rename the method `to_string` to `debug_to_string`
+- `print` and `println` should only accept `String` as argument
+- rename the old `println` to `debug` to avoid writing a lot of `println(bla.to_string())` boilerplates