Simon Peyton Jones authored Nov 09, 2022 and Simon Peyton Jones committed Nov 11, 2022

This big patch addresses the rats-nest of issues that have plagued
us for years, about the relationship between Type and Constraint.
See #11715/#21623.

The main payload of the patch is:
* To introduce CONSTRAINT :: RuntimeRep -> Type
* To make TYPE and CONSTRAINT distinct throughout the compiler

Two overview Notes in GHC.Builtin.Types.Prim

* Note [TYPE and CONSTRAINT]

* Note [Type and Constraint are not apart]
  This is the main complication.

The specifics

* New primitive types (GHC.Builtin.Types.Prim)
  - CONSTRAINT
  - ctArrowTyCon (=>)
  - tcArrowTyCon (-=>)
  - ccArrowTyCon (==>)
  - funTyCon     FUN     -- Not new
  See Note [Function type constructors and FunTy]
  and Note [TYPE and CONSTRAINT]

* GHC.Builtin.Types:
  - New type Constraint = CONSTRAINT LiftedRep
  - I also stopped nonEmptyTyCon being built-in; it only needs to be wired-in

* Exploit the fact that Type and Constraint are distinct throughout GHC
  - Get rid of tcView in favour of coreView.
  - ...