Why is there a cabal file at all?

[Henning Thielemann]

On Sat, 13 Jan 2007, Conal Elliott wrote:

> Hi Bryan,
> 
> > From your argument I conclude that Haskell code unsafe in general, not just
> for package specification.  I'd like to see us address the general problem,
> rather than avoid it here and there.  I hate to see sacrifice the benefits
> of declarative DSELs (reuse, expressiveness, etc) and still not root out
> (hmm) the core problem of safety.

Me too. See e.g. verification of homework Haskell programs. Suppressing IO
is simple, suppressing unsafePerformIO - how to do that?

> I also wonder: if you don't trust my package spec code, why would you trust
> my library code?  My package spec is usually very simple, and when it's not,
> I'd welcome your scrutiny and help in making it simpler and more easily
> trusted.

Or - why do you trust Setup.lhs?