<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Hey, respectful devs, <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Just now I see <a href="https://coder.com/" class="">https://coder.com/</a> (open source at <a href="https://github.com/cdr/code-server" class="">https://github.com/cdr/code-server</a>), then I realize it may make a good option for windows users to feel home in starting Haskell development.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">They happen to be talking about releasing a windows binary from current basis that only Linux/macOS are supported - <a href="https://github.com/cdr/code-server/issues/1397#issuecomment-627662902" class="">https://github.com/cdr/code-server/issues/1397#issuecomment-627662902</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Their mac experience is right about downloading a .zip file from <a href="https://github.com/cdr/code-server/releases" class="">https://github.com/cdr/code-server/releases</a> , unpack it, double-click an executable (security option needs to be tuned as a mac thing), then goto <a href="http://localhost:8080/" class="">http://localhost:8080/</a> and voila:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="name clickable" title="Extension name" style="cursor: pointer; flex: 0 1 0%; font-size: 26px; line-height: 30px; font-weight: 600; white-space: nowrap; color: rgb(204, 204, 204); font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(30, 30, 30);">Haskell Language Server</span><span class="identifier" title="Extension identifier" style="margin-left: 10px; font-size: 14px; opacity: 0.6; background-color: rgba(173, 173, 173, 0.309804); padding: 0px 4px; border-top-left-radius: 4px; border-top-right-radius: 4px; border-bottom-right-radius: 4px; border-bottom-left-radius: 4px; white-space: nowrap; color: rgb(204, 204, 204); font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">alanz.vscode-hie-server</span> can be installed right away</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div><img apple-inline="yes" id="2F5B1BC2-9D6B-4409-AC43-5E735B7D7921" src="cid:C4013521-FF54-4D86-BCEE-0B2AC37BE5CB@dw" class=""></div><div><br class=""></div><div>I'd think GHC and Cabal-install can be bundled similarly, with such an IDE and batteries of HIE based extensions.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>Maybe some day HLS can hook ghcup/ghcups/stack up to install GHC wrt per project specification, in a cross-platform way.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>All the best,</div><div>Compl</div><div><br class=""></div><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 2020-05-13, at 18:55, Hécate <<a href="mailto:hecate@glitchbra.in" class="">hecate@glitchbra.in</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="">Dear GHC devs, dear maintainers,<br class=""><br class="">Following a discussion that took place on #ghc, I wish to spread it to the whole mailing-list, in order to receive some feedback,<br class="">and plan for the future now that it has become clear that the present is rather bleak.<br class=""><br class="">As some of you may have seen from the long threads in haskell-cafe@, countless steps of various difficulty for Windows users<br class="">(excluding power-users) need to be taken in order to have a proper working GHC / Haskell installation on their machine.<br class="">Moreover, some defiance against Chocolatey has come to our ears, due to the mailing-list registration form that appears<br class="">when one desires to download this package manager. I shall speak for myself by saying that I do not wish the that the Windows<br class="">Haskell developers need to become a special combo of Chocolatey maintainers and Windows power users.<br class="">Some GNU/Linux distributions such as Exherbo have made this their creed, the major difference being that they actually give<br class="">the tools to make such a thing possible.<br class=""><br class="">The point of my email to you all is the following: I suggest that <a href="http://Haskell.org" class="">Haskell.org</a>, the 501(c)(3) established in NY which, If I am not mistaken,<br class="">holds the funds from various individual donations, the Amazon Smile programme and Software in the Public Interest grants,<br class="">hires a company to establish a strong technological basis regarding Windows packaging. I am not talking of delegating the maintaining task<br class="">to an external entity, but to provide the foundations upon which volunteers will be able to keep things running.<br class="">Training in such matters would also be beneficial, so that newcomers can learn on the spot how to best interact with this.<br class=""><br class="">Their contract would involve the initial setup of CI tasks able to produce MSIX packages, while the people in charge of the <a href="http://haskell.org" class="">haskell.org</a><br class="">landing page would ease the user experience by providing clearer ways to install GHC on various platforms.<br class="">Ideally we could have a GUI to install libraries easily, like many GNU/Linux package managers offer.<br class=""><br class="">That being said, I was also suggested the idea of a grant and/or sponsorship. What we need is less a capitalist framework around that task<br class="">and more of an incentive to invest a serious amount of work and quality so that it becomes, at last, the non-issue it should have always been.<br class=""><br class="">The important thing to keep in mind is that the GNU/Linux and macOS users *cannot* hold the Windows users to the same standards in<br class="">terms of CLI usability. I cannot weigh in my opinion on the most recent iterations of PowerShell, but Windows XP's cmd.exe was<br class="">excruciating, to say the least.<br class=""><br class="">Now, I know some of you will prefer to have this task handled by competent volunteers, but I am under the moral obligation to say<br class="">that expecting salvation and better tomorrows from people who have yet to make their presence known in the thirty years of existence<br class="">of our dear language, is at best mild delusion, at worse folly that will only widen the gap between what is needed to get Haskell up and<br class="">running smoothly on the Windows platform and the average skill of Windows users.<br class=""><br class="">I am not suggesting that my email is The True Way to follow so that everything is fixed forever,<br class="">and if we can, as a community, arrive to some satisfying workflow that would benefit rather than alienate<br class="">our Windows user base, this would would be wonderful.<br class=""><br class=""><br class="">Thank you for reading until the end.<br class=""><br class="">Cheers,<br class="">Hécate.<br class=""><br class="">PS: I am in no way trying to berate anyone for their implied incompetence, or imply that Windows users are stupid and/or technologically impaired.<br class="">This would be misinterpreting my words and lead nowhere but to another OS war on another mailing-list.<br class="">PPS: I am serious. Please stay on-topic.<br class="">PPPS: I hold no share, no money or any other form of capital in any Windows packaging company we might or might not end up hiring for the task.<br class="">I am speaking of experience, for my company used an external contractor to work on our landing (non-product) page, while all hands were on deck<br class="">to support the product development effort. This allowed us to have a strong foundation to iterate on, and bought us countless hours of development time.<br class=""><br class="">_______________________________________________<br class="">ghc-devs mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:ghc-devs@haskell.org" class="">ghc-devs@haskell.org</a><br class="">http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs<br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></body></html>