haskell / haskell/win32

Clarify the decision behind the HWND/HANDLE/Ptr() type synonyms

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help wanted minor issue
Dominant language
Haskell
Stars
101
Forks
65
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

I was surprised to find that these aren't the definitions for `HWND` and `HANDLE`

`newtype HWND = HWND { unsafeHWNDToHANDLE :: HANDLE }`

`newtype HANDLE = HANDLE { unsafeHANDLEToPtr :: Ptr () }`

I'm not an expert in Win32 programming, but I don't think that conversions between these three types are so pervasive (and without consequence) as to necessitate using synonyms here rather than something which protects the programmer a little more. If this is required, it would be great to document the declarations with this information, if not then perhaps there could be a major version update replacing the synonyms.

The same thing could probably be said for any of the other type synonyms of `HANDLE` in `Win32`.

Contributor guide

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Research direction

Begin with the HWND, HANDLE, and other HANDLE-related type-synonym declarations in Win32, then review how their conversions are used. Done means documenting the rationale for keeping the synonyms, or reaching a project decision about replacing them with newtypes in a major version.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
haskell
Domain
operating-systems
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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