From johnw at newartisans.com Tue Sep 8 21:44:27 2015 From: johnw at newartisans.com (John Wiegley) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2015 14:44:27 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Test message Message-ID: This is a test of posting to the haskell-community mailing list. John From gershomb at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 21:58:57 2015 From: gershomb at gmail.com (Gershom B) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2015 17:58:57 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] ANN: Creation of Haskell-Community list for Haskell.org Community Infrastructure Discussions Message-ID: Dear all, The haskell.org committee [1] had a productive week during ICFP, and at some point we'll try to write up some of the small things underway and future plans -- many things are quite tentative at the moment. However, one thing that became clear to us (well, thanks to the useful prodding of SPJ) is that we have historically participated in discussions in other venues (-cafe, reddit, etc) and then had our own internal discussions (few, seldom, and largely organizational to be honest) on the low-traffic committee [at] haskell.org mail alias. But this leaves open people wondering what those discussions are. And it also leaves open where the *designated place* to discuss haskell.org community infrastructure is. The haskell-infrastructure [2] list is very quiet and really about technical considerations. Meanwhile, -cafe, reddit and soforth are about anything and everything. So we created another list, which will be a place where we seek to have our discussions related to plans for haskell.org committee work, and where we invite everyone to join us. This new list is the haskell-community list: https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community The committee alias will still work, and is still the way to just write directly to the members of the committee -- no list to join. But if you wish to have a discussion about how we have things set up on haskell community infrastructure, services provided, and that we might wish to add, and how you can help (or even just what your thoughts are on how things might be done), now there is a good place for that. Hope to continue conversations with many of you there, Gershom (for the haskell.org committee) [1] https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell.org_committee [2] http://community.galois.com/mailman/listinfo/haskell-infrastructure From simonpj at microsoft.com Wed Sep 9 11:42:03 2015 From: simonpj at microsoft.com (Simon Peyton Jones) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2015 11:42:03 +0000 Subject: [Haskell-community] [Haskell-cafe] ANN: Creation of Haskell-Community list for Haskell.org Community Infrastructure Discussions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <81dbf924153f45f7a68461c5135c19dc@DB4PR30MB030.064d.mgd.msft.net> | But this leaves open people wondering what those discussions are. And | it also leaves open where the *designated place* to discuss | haskell.org community infrastructure is. The haskell-infrastructure | [2] list is very quiet and really about technical considerations. | Meanwhile, -cafe, reddit and so forth are about anything and | everything. So we created another list, which will be a place where we | seek to have our discussions related to plans for haskell.org | committee work, and where we invite everyone to join us. I think this is terrific, thanks Gershom. Just to be clear, as I understand it, the intent is to broaden participation in the work of the haskell.org committee (which is our only single point of confluence covering the entire Haskell community) by making its discussions by-default open to everyone to join in. Specifically: * Anyone can write to the haskell-community list. * Haskell.org committee members commit to reading the haskell-community list and writing to it. That is, it's not a side-show. The way to bring something to the attention of the committee (and the wider community) is to write to the list. * Discussion among haskell.org committee members takes place, by default, on the new, public, haskell-community mailing list. (There is still a private list for members, but it is used only when there is a particular reason for not conducting a conversation in public; for example when debating nominations for new members of the committee.) Perhaps it'd be worth adding a sub-section on https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell.org_committee just to make these points? Simon | -----Original Message----- | From: Haskell-Cafe [mailto:haskell-cafe-bounces at haskell.org] On Behalf | Of Gershom B | Sent: 08 September 2015 22:59 | To: haskell-cafe; haskell at haskell.org; haskell- | infrastructure at community.galois.com; haskell-community at haskell.org | Subject: [Haskell-cafe] ANN: Creation of Haskell-Community list for | Haskell.org Community Infrastructure Discussions | | Dear all, | | The haskell.org committee [1] had a productive week during ICFP, and | at some point we'll try to write up some of the small things underway | and future plans -- many things are quite tentative at the moment. | | However, one thing that became clear to us (well, thanks to the useful | prodding of SPJ) is that we have historically participated in | discussions in other venues (-cafe, reddit, etc) and then had our own | internal discussions (few, seldom, and largely organizational to be | honest) on the low-traffic committee [at] haskell.org mail alias. | | But this leaves open people wondering what those discussions are. And | it also leaves open where the *designated place* to discuss | haskell.org community infrastructure is. The haskell-infrastructure | [2] list is very quiet and really about technical considerations. | Meanwhile, -cafe, reddit and soforth are about anything and | everything. So we created another list, which will be a place where we | seek to have our discussions related to plans for haskell.org | committee work, and where we invite everyone to join us. | | This new list is the haskell-community list: | https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community | | The committee alias will still work, and is still the way to just | write directly to the members of the committee -- no list to join. But | if you wish to have a discussion about how we have things set up on | haskell community infrastructure, services provided, and that we might | wish to add, and how you can help (or even just what your thoughts are | on how things might be done), now there is a good place for that. | | Hope to continue conversations with many of you there, Gershom (for | the haskell.org committee) | | [1] https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell.org_committee | [2] http://community.galois.com/mailman/listinfo/haskell- | infrastructure | _______________________________________________ | Haskell-Cafe mailing list | Haskell-Cafe at haskell.org | http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe From gershomb at gmail.com Wed Sep 9 13:55:23 2015 From: gershomb at gmail.com (Gershom B) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2015 09:55:23 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] [Haskell-cafe] ANN: Creation of Haskell-Community list for Haskell.org Community Infrastructure Discussions In-Reply-To: <81dbf924153f45f7a68461c5135c19dc@DB4PR30MB030.064d.mgd.msft.net> References: <81dbf924153f45f7a68461c5135c19dc@DB4PR30MB030.064d.mgd.msft.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 7:42 AM, Simon Peyton Jones wrote: > > * Anyone can write to the haskell-community list. > > * Haskell.org committee members commit to reading the haskell-community > list and writing to it. That is, it's not a side-show. The way to > bring something to the attention of the committee (and the wider > community) is to write to the list. > > * Discussion among haskell.org committee members takes place, by default, > on the new, public, haskell-community mailing list. (There is still a > private list for members, but it is used only when there is a particular > reason for not conducting a conversation in public; for example when > debating nominations for new members of the committee.) > > Perhaps it'd be worth adding a sub-section on https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell.org_committee just to make these points? All correct bullet points, and the wiki has been updated to talk about the list more specifically. --gershom From gershomb at gmail.com Thu Sep 10 00:54:59 2015 From: gershomb at gmail.com (Gershom B) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2015 20:54:59 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] A few kickoff notes and Outreachy Message-ID: Hi everyone and welcome. I?m surprised we have roughly 50 subscribers so far. Bear in mind I do expect this to be a relatively boring list, but we will of course see how things develop :-). I came back from ICFP with a bunch of discussions about various small things in various stages of work and repair, and I plan to start a number of small threads as time permits over the next few days on each of these in turn, with the idea that people who are interested can follow only relevant discussions, and people can reply over time (be it rapidly or just a month or two down the line) to update on how things are going. Many of these were discussed by the whole committee at one of our first in-person meetings since inception where all members were present (a rare occasion, and not one I think we should imagine is easily replicable). One thing thought I would mention first is that we are planning to participate in Outreachy (https://www.gnome.org/outreachy/) which is the successor to the Gnome Outreach Program for Women. It works sort of like GSoC but with an outreach focus, and with orgs funding their own interns and Outreachy coordinating, as I understand it. We had meant to do so for a few years but the timing hasn?t worked out. The applications for orgs to participate in the new round closes on September 21 ? I think we had thought it was too late for us to co-ordinate for this round, but instead we would prefer to do it in May so as to co-ordinate our admin overhead with that of dealing with GSoC. Nonetheless, I believe the plan was to get in touch with Outreachy very soon, so that we could actually have things lined up by the next round, unlike previous years. I think Adam was going to handle this? I think an overall consideration here is that we have now acquired a relative surplus compared to our income, year over year, and it would be good to look for modest ways to use it to good ends. So an intern in the next outreachy round seems like a good ?trial balloon? in this direction. Anyway, we can use this thread to track when we make any progress on discussions with Outreachy and what steps we need to take when. ?Gershom From acfoltzer at gmail.com Thu Sep 10 00:58:14 2015 From: acfoltzer at gmail.com (Adam Foltzer) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2015 17:58:14 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] A few kickoff notes and Outreachy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks for kicking this off, Gershom. I emailed Marina Zhurakhinskaya earlier today asking for what sort of timeline we should expect for the summer 2016 round, and will report back here when I hear back. On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 5:54 PM, Gershom B wrote: > Hi everyone and welcome. I?m surprised we have roughly 50 subscribers so > far. Bear in mind I do expect this to be a relatively boring list, but we > will of course see how things develop :-). > > I came back from ICFP with a bunch of discussions about various small > things in various stages of work and repair, and I plan to start a number > of small threads as time permits over the next few days on each of these in > turn, with the idea that people who are interested can follow only relevant > discussions, and people can reply over time (be it rapidly or just a month > or two down the line) to update on how things are going. Many of these were > discussed by the whole committee at one of our first in-person meetings > since inception where all members were present (a rare occasion, and not > one I think we should imagine is easily replicable). > > One thing thought I would mention first is that we are planning to > participate in Outreachy (https://www.gnome.org/outreachy/) which is the > successor to the Gnome Outreach Program for Women. It works sort of like > GSoC but with an outreach focus, and with orgs funding their own interns > and Outreachy coordinating, as I understand it. We had meant to do so for a > few years but the timing hasn?t worked out. The applications for orgs to > participate in the new round closes on September 21 ? I think we had > thought it was too late for us to co-ordinate for this round, but instead > we would prefer to do it in May so as to co-ordinate our admin overhead > with that of dealing with GSoC. Nonetheless, I believe the plan was to get > in touch with Outreachy very soon, so that we could actually have things > lined up by the next round, unlike previous years. I think Adam was going > to handle this? > > I think an overall consideration here is that we have now acquired a > relative surplus compared to our income, year over year, and it would be > good to look for modest ways to use it to good ends. So an intern in the > next outreachy round seems like a good ?trial balloon? in this direction. > > Anyway, we can use this thread to track when we make any progress on > discussions with Outreachy and what steps we need to take when. > > ?Gershom > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gershomb at gmail.com Thu Sep 10 01:07:32 2015 From: gershomb at gmail.com (Gershom B) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2015 21:07:32 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Better Stats Message-ID: One of the things I mentioned wanting help with in the haskell infra status update I gave at HIW [1] was better stats. In fact, when I prepared the talk, I forgot we actually had some google analytics in place. In any case, they need work to be extended and made more complete with regards to pages covered, and especially downloads. Jose Calderon volunteered afterwards to put some effort in on this, as time permits. He says he?d like to be able to stamp out ?quarterly traffic reports? or the like eventually, which sounds pretty neat to me, and I got him set up (I think) on GA. Again, just recording this here and ideally we can track this as time goes forward. ?Gershom [1]?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cblJf84nkj8 From gershomb at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 01:35:34 2015 From: gershomb at gmail.com (Gershom B) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2015 21:35:34 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Hackage Roots of Trust Message-ID: At the Haskell Implementor's Workshop at ICFP, Duncan gave a talk on the work on security and package infrastructure that has been going on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9juHHlnayI One element of that, which was turned over the committee to figure out is who our actual roots of trust would be, in the same sense that there are root certificates for TLS and https authentication, etc. at the Haskell Symposium itself, I gave a quick lightning talk on the work the committee had done in this regard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8ISiSXV2c0 (If you are interested in verifying your communications with Duncan by the way, and if you trust the video is undoctored, then his GPG key fingerprint appears on it, which may be of some use.) We did in fact get some keysigning done at the conference, and we also secured a fair number of keys from the roots of trust we co-ordinated, though some followup work remains to be done there. We certainly already have enough in hand to bootstrap the process as the hackage security work gets fully rolled out. One related discussion we started to have was if we might want to do haskell community funding for "phase two" of the update framework rollout, as discussed in Duncan's talk -- that phase where we not only implement server trust and signing, but also author signing. Apropos of nothing, but a related thought/question I had was if there would be interest in making cabal files themselves more potentially secure in the manner of the LIO / HLIO work [1]. Having a better chain of trust seems to somewhat obviate the need here, but it does seem like something worth considering. Similar mechanisms might also be worth integrating into template haskell IO for that matter. However, one concern is that the worth of these approaches depends in part on good SafeHaskell takeup, which has a whole bunch of obstacles in itself :-) Cheers, Gershom [1] http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~russo/publications_files/hybrid-icfp2015.pdf and https://hackage.haskell.org/package/lio-0.11.5.0 and http://www.scs.stanford.edu/~deian/pubs/stefan:2014:building-haskell.pdf From dagitj at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 17:02:24 2015 From: dagitj at gmail.com (Jason Dagit) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2015 10:02:24 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Hackage Roots of Trust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Somewhat related to this, I got an email reminder from GlobalSign today saying our cert expires soon, mid-November. I've currently been the one that registers/renews the cert. Perhaps part of the discussion around our roots of trust will include a discussion of how to manage this cert? Thanks, Jason On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 6:35 PM, Gershom B wrote: > At the Haskell Implementor's Workshop at ICFP, Duncan gave a talk on > the work on security and package infrastructure that has been going > on: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9juHHlnayI > > One element of that, which was turned over the committee to figure out > is who our actual roots of trust would be, in the same sense that > there are root certificates for TLS and https authentication, etc. > > at the Haskell Symposium itself, I gave a quick lightning talk on the > work the committee had done in this regard: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8ISiSXV2c0 > > (If you are interested in verifying your communications with Duncan by > the way, and if you trust the video is undoctored, then his GPG key > fingerprint appears on it, which may be of some use.) > > We did in fact get some keysigning done at the conference, and we also > secured a fair number of keys from the roots of trust we co-ordinated, > though some followup work remains to be done there. We certainly > already have enough in hand to bootstrap the process as the hackage > security work gets fully rolled out. > > One related discussion we started to have was if we might want to do > haskell community funding for "phase two" of the update framework > rollout, as discussed in Duncan's talk -- that phase where we not only > implement server trust and signing, but also author signing. > > Apropos of nothing, but a related thought/question I had was if there > would be interest in making cabal files themselves more potentially > secure in the manner of the LIO / HLIO work [1]. Having a better chain > of trust seems to somewhat obviate the need here, but it does seem > like something worth considering. Similar mechanisms might also be > worth integrating into template haskell IO for that matter. However, > one concern is that the worth of these approaches depends in part on > good SafeHaskell takeup, which has a whole bunch of obstacles in > itself :-) > > Cheers, > Gershom > > [1] > http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~russo/publications_files/hybrid-icfp2015.pdf > and https://hackage.haskell.org/package/lio-0.11.5.0 and > http://www.scs.stanford.edu/~deian/pubs/stefan:2014:building-haskell.pdf > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ryan.trinkle at gmail.com Wed Sep 16 19:01:18 2015 From: ryan.trinkle at gmail.com (Ryan Trinkle) Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2015 15:01:18 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Hackage Roots of Trust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Would Let's Encrypt be appropriate? I don't know too much about it, but it's "free, automated, and open", which sounds cool. According to what they've been saying, it *should* be ready in time. On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 1:02 PM, Jason Dagit wrote: > Somewhat related to this, I got an email reminder from GlobalSign today > saying our cert expires soon, mid-November. I've currently been the one > that registers/renews the cert. Perhaps part of the discussion around our > roots of trust will include a discussion of how to manage this cert? > > Thanks, > Jason > > On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 6:35 PM, Gershom B wrote: > >> At the Haskell Implementor's Workshop at ICFP, Duncan gave a talk on >> the work on security and package infrastructure that has been going >> on: >> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9juHHlnayI >> >> One element of that, which was turned over the committee to figure out >> is who our actual roots of trust would be, in the same sense that >> there are root certificates for TLS and https authentication, etc. >> >> at the Haskell Symposium itself, I gave a quick lightning talk on the >> work the committee had done in this regard: >> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8ISiSXV2c0 >> >> (If you are interested in verifying your communications with Duncan by >> the way, and if you trust the video is undoctored, then his GPG key >> fingerprint appears on it, which may be of some use.) >> >> We did in fact get some keysigning done at the conference, and we also >> secured a fair number of keys from the roots of trust we co-ordinated, >> though some followup work remains to be done there. We certainly >> already have enough in hand to bootstrap the process as the hackage >> security work gets fully rolled out. >> >> One related discussion we started to have was if we might want to do >> haskell community funding for "phase two" of the update framework >> rollout, as discussed in Duncan's talk -- that phase where we not only >> implement server trust and signing, but also author signing. >> >> Apropos of nothing, but a related thought/question I had was if there >> would be interest in making cabal files themselves more potentially >> secure in the manner of the LIO / HLIO work [1]. Having a better chain >> of trust seems to somewhat obviate the need here, but it does seem >> like something worth considering. Similar mechanisms might also be >> worth integrating into template haskell IO for that matter. However, >> one concern is that the worth of these approaches depends in part on >> good SafeHaskell takeup, which has a whole bunch of obstacles in >> itself :-) >> >> Cheers, >> Gershom >> >> [1] >> http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~russo/publications_files/hybrid-icfp2015.pdf >> and https://hackage.haskell.org/package/lio-0.11.5.0 and >> http://www.scs.stanford.edu/~deian/pubs/stefan:2014:building-haskell.pdf >> _______________________________________________ >> Haskell-community mailing list >> Haskell-community at haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From randyhaskell at outlook.com Thu Sep 17 17:26:27 2015 From: randyhaskell at outlook.com (Randy Polen) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2015 10:26:27 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Code signing for Windows exes Message-ID: It would also be great, while considering the roots of trust, to also consider acquiring and escrowing (i.e., who keeps, who uses) a code signing certificate so that we can sign the handful of Haskell Community executables that we build for Windows. Top of that list would be the Haskell Platform installation executables, but we could also use it for the pre-built cabal, stack, etc. From michael at fpcomplete.com Thu Sep 17 17:34:33 2015 From: michael at fpcomplete.com (Michael Snoyman) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2015 20:34:33 +0300 Subject: [Haskell-community] Code signing for Windows exes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We're discussing doing this for both stack and MinGHC: https://github.com/fpco/minghc/issues/61 On Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 8:26 PM, Randy Polen wrote: > It would also be great, while considering the roots of trust, > to also consider acquiring and escrowing (i.e., who keeps, who uses) > a code signing certificate so that we can sign the handful of > Haskell Community executables that we build for Windows. > > Top of that list would be the Haskell Platform installation executables, > but we could also use it for the pre-built cabal, stack, etc. > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gershomb at gmail.com Fri Sep 18 20:12:50 2015 From: gershomb at gmail.com (Gershom B) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2015 16:12:50 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Hackage Roots of Trust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We can keep our eye on it, but our globalsign cert is fine for the time being in my opinion. For now, I'm happy to let Jason continue to manage the cert since transferring it is potentially a pain? In the future, turning management over to our admins seems a reasonable course of action. One of the nice things about the roots of trust system is that our package distribution is now secured _regardless_ of our cert, so it seems good to keep the cert managed the "typical" way (perhaps passing the register/renew stuff over to a current committee member if we prefer) rather than having to reinvent _all_ the wheels :-) --gershom On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 3:01 PM, Ryan Trinkle wrote: > Would Let's Encrypt be appropriate? I don't know too much about it, but > it's "free, automated, and open", which sounds cool. According to what > they've been saying, it *should* be ready in time. > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 1:02 PM, Jason Dagit wrote: >> >> Somewhat related to this, I got an email reminder from GlobalSign today >> saying our cert expires soon, mid-November. I've currently been the one that >> registers/renews the cert. Perhaps part of the discussion around our roots >> of trust will include a discussion of how to manage this cert? >> >> Thanks, >> Jason >> >> On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 6:35 PM, Gershom B wrote: >>> >>> At the Haskell Implementor's Workshop at ICFP, Duncan gave a talk on >>> the work on security and package infrastructure that has been going >>> on: >>> >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9juHHlnayI >>> >>> One element of that, which was turned over the committee to figure out >>> is who our actual roots of trust would be, in the same sense that >>> there are root certificates for TLS and https authentication, etc. >>> >>> at the Haskell Symposium itself, I gave a quick lightning talk on the >>> work the committee had done in this regard: >>> >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8ISiSXV2c0 >>> >>> (If you are interested in verifying your communications with Duncan by >>> the way, and if you trust the video is undoctored, then his GPG key >>> fingerprint appears on it, which may be of some use.) >>> >>> We did in fact get some keysigning done at the conference, and we also >>> secured a fair number of keys from the roots of trust we co-ordinated, >>> though some followup work remains to be done there. We certainly >>> already have enough in hand to bootstrap the process as the hackage >>> security work gets fully rolled out. >>> >>> One related discussion we started to have was if we might want to do >>> haskell community funding for "phase two" of the update framework >>> rollout, as discussed in Duncan's talk -- that phase where we not only >>> implement server trust and signing, but also author signing. >>> >>> Apropos of nothing, but a related thought/question I had was if there >>> would be interest in making cabal files themselves more potentially >>> secure in the manner of the LIO / HLIO work [1]. Having a better chain >>> of trust seems to somewhat obviate the need here, but it does seem >>> like something worth considering. Similar mechanisms might also be >>> worth integrating into template haskell IO for that matter. However, >>> one concern is that the worth of these approaches depends in part on >>> good SafeHaskell takeup, which has a whole bunch of obstacles in >>> itself :-) >>> >>> Cheers, >>> Gershom >>> >>> [1] >>> http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~russo/publications_files/hybrid-icfp2015.pdf >>> and https://hackage.haskell.org/package/lio-0.11.5.0 and >>> http://www.scs.stanford.edu/~deian/pubs/stefan:2014:building-haskell.pdf >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Haskell-community mailing list >>> Haskell-community at haskell.org >>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Haskell-community mailing list >> Haskell-community at haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >> > From dagitj at gmail.com Fri Sep 18 21:28:02 2015 From: dagitj at gmail.com (Jason Dagit) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2015 14:28:02 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Hackage Roots of Trust In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 1:12 PM, Gershom B wrote: > We can keep our eye on it, but our globalsign cert is fine for the > time being in my opinion. > > For now, I'm happy to let Jason continue to manage the cert since > transferring it is potentially a pain? > First off, I don't mind managing it. I just interact with a webform once a year. Pretty minimal. Second, at the moment the biggest pain point on my end is safely and securely transferring the cert files to the people who need them. In the past, I think we used gpg + email. So if we simply did it in a better way that pain point would go away. I should probably be using scp to transfer the files to a secure directory on the server where the admin team can pick it up. I don't know if transferring the responsibility will be painful. The folks at GlobalSign really like the opportunity to support the Haskell community with the cert and they are responsive, so I doubt it will be painful. I should play around with the GlobalSign website and see if I can use it to delegate to others. Could we set it up so that one person authorizes the creation of the cert, but grants others access once it's created? I'm most interested in redundancy (in case something happens to me or I'm unavailable at the right time) and also interested in secure handling of the cert. > In the future, turning management over to our admins seems a > reasonable course of action. One of the nice things about the roots of > trust system is that our package distribution is now secured > _regardless_ of our cert, so it seems good to keep the cert managed > the "typical" way (perhaps passing the register/renew stuff over to a > current committee member if we prefer) rather than having to reinvent > _all_ the wheels :-) > > > --gershom > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 3:01 PM, Ryan Trinkle > wrote: > > Would Let's Encrypt be appropriate? I don't know too much about it, but > > it's "free, automated, and open", which sounds cool. According to what > > they've been saying, it *should* be ready in time. > > > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 1:02 PM, Jason Dagit wrote: > >> > >> Somewhat related to this, I got an email reminder from GlobalSign today > >> saying our cert expires soon, mid-November. I've currently been the one > that > >> registers/renews the cert. Perhaps part of the discussion around our > roots > >> of trust will include a discussion of how to manage this cert? > >> > >> Thanks, > >> Jason > >> > >> On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 6:35 PM, Gershom B wrote: > >>> > >>> At the Haskell Implementor's Workshop at ICFP, Duncan gave a talk on > >>> the work on security and package infrastructure that has been going > >>> on: > >>> > >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9juHHlnayI > >>> > >>> One element of that, which was turned over the committee to figure out > >>> is who our actual roots of trust would be, in the same sense that > >>> there are root certificates for TLS and https authentication, etc. > >>> > >>> at the Haskell Symposium itself, I gave a quick lightning talk on the > >>> work the committee had done in this regard: > >>> > >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8ISiSXV2c0 > >>> > >>> (If you are interested in verifying your communications with Duncan by > >>> the way, and if you trust the video is undoctored, then his GPG key > >>> fingerprint appears on it, which may be of some use.) > >>> > >>> We did in fact get some keysigning done at the conference, and we also > >>> secured a fair number of keys from the roots of trust we co-ordinated, > >>> though some followup work remains to be done there. We certainly > >>> already have enough in hand to bootstrap the process as the hackage > >>> security work gets fully rolled out. > >>> > >>> One related discussion we started to have was if we might want to do > >>> haskell community funding for "phase two" of the update framework > >>> rollout, as discussed in Duncan's talk -- that phase where we not only > >>> implement server trust and signing, but also author signing. > >>> > >>> Apropos of nothing, but a related thought/question I had was if there > >>> would be interest in making cabal files themselves more potentially > >>> secure in the manner of the LIO / HLIO work [1]. Having a better chain > >>> of trust seems to somewhat obviate the need here, but it does seem > >>> like something worth considering. Similar mechanisms might also be > >>> worth integrating into template haskell IO for that matter. However, > >>> one concern is that the worth of these approaches depends in part on > >>> good SafeHaskell takeup, which has a whole bunch of obstacles in > >>> itself :-) > >>> > >>> Cheers, > >>> Gershom > >>> > >>> [1] > >>> > http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~russo/publications_files/hybrid-icfp2015.pdf > >>> and https://hackage.haskell.org/package/lio-0.11.5.0 and > >>> > http://www.scs.stanford.edu/~deian/pubs/stefan:2014:building-haskell.pdf > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> Haskell-community mailing list > >>> Haskell-community at haskell.org > >>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > >> > >> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Haskell-community mailing list > >> Haskell-community at haskell.org > >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > >> > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cma at bitemyapp.com Mon Sep 21 05:05:32 2015 From: cma at bitemyapp.com (Christopher Allen) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 00:05:32 -0500 Subject: [Haskell-community] Haskell Platform as the default recommendation considered harmful Message-ID: Here are some quotes from end-users regarding Platform. This is just what I found on the web and from skimming IRC logs, it doesn't include many hundreds more of examples from IRC of new people _in particular_ getting stuck because they didn't understand they were conflicting with globally installed packages. New people do not understand: 1. ghc-pkg 2. The global vs. user package databases 3. Cabal 4. What Platform does to their build environment New Haskell users are least equipped to understand errors caused by: 1. Package version conflicts 2. Something innate to their install, rather than something wrong with their package constraints. Part of the problem is that the people making decisions on these matters are not the people on the frontlines helping new people in IRC or otherwise in the wild with sufficient regularity to see how often this catches people up. It's less common than it used to be, but that's due in large part to people following the install instructions on https://github.com/bitemyapp/learnhaskell and using things like MinGHC and Stack. Comments like this from the committee: "Despite the controversies over if platform is "right for beginners" it needs to be provided from the downloads page generally." Are representative of the experience the community has had trying to get the situation rectified and people routed to alternatives so that unnecessary friction isn't encountered. Past comments I've made on this: Haskell libraries typically move pretty quickly...Having cabal sandbox init && cabal install $package just work is important and Platform compromises that as the globally installed packages becoming out of date between releases. Doug Beardsley, one of the core Snap developers said this in reply: "This. This is the biggest reason I don't use the platform and have advised a number of relative newcomers to switch from the platform to straight GHC when they encountered build dependency problems." I used to tell people in my guide to install Haskell Platform, but I stopped because it kept creating problems. Haskell Platform causes trouble for new people when the globally installed packages get old. These very same new people are the ones least equipped to cope with or understand the problem or where it comes from. Platform should be recommended when it is the best option available for the majority of Haskell users. Quotes from end-users: "The HP downloads have been moved "above the fold" with a clear demarcating line separating the "first class citizen" (HP) from the other, minimal installers. Frankly, I was astonished when I went on the other day and saw this change, since originally there was pushback about even having HP on the downloads page at all!" (re: content changes on the new haskell.org website) "I know I'm a beginner, but I don't even understand what problem #Haskell platform is trying to solve." "Yeah, I was bitten by Haskell Platform a few weeks ago. I'll have to check out Stack though." "I haven't used haskell for a few years, installed haskell platform the other day, it works fine but I can't cabal install" (said 2015-09-15 btw) > As per #55 we want less biased presentation of bare install vs. platform, not more. "Ok. (I recommend people to Haskell sometimes, and I see HP hurts them a lot, as they all want to do webdev) Especially now that Stack is out and picking up momentum, I personally consider HP completely superseded." "Windows user here. I dumped Platform the day MinGHC happened, and have never looked back." "On OS X, in my experience it is way easier to set up Haskell without HP than with, fwiw. I don't think it was always this way, but it has been for at least a year." "Actually, I don't understand why we need Haskell Platform at all? Now, when stack exists, Haskell Platform is useless, I think. "Haskell with batteries included"? Yes, but what batteries are? Compiler+Interpreter, Cabal 35 "core" packages. With stack I can setup ghc-infrastructure and install any packages I need." "It seems to me that within the community, we all know stack is the clear winner, and we can recommend it to whomever is showing us an interest in Haskell. Unfortunately, haskell.org appears to be the landing portal for the language to a newcomer with no existing ties to the community, and thus no one to recommend stack over it. Stack is so obviously a better tool for a new user, it's unbelievable. /subjective opinion" "Yes, a regular frustration when helping folks on IRC is that the first three steps have so often been to, 1. Apologize 2. Instruct how to uninstall what they have 3. Start again with GHC and cabal The effort made at packaging GHC on both Windows and OS X are really solid pieces of work. It looks like Stackage LTS will provide a nice basis for a set of libraries moving forward." "as a newborn Haskeller, I agree. Platform (OSX) was a huge pain, uninstalled it, learned cabal sandboxes, sometimes nuke them, everything works." "I find the platform to be a huge burden to beginners on OS X. It just leads to cabal hell. Anything except the minimum to build cabal-install in the global sandbox == super bad." "The platform was very confusing to me as a beginner, and only now that I know what I'm doing do I see what it was trying to accomplish. I'm depending on the awesome PPA, hopefully GHC can be made easier to get running without such a thing on other platforms." "Actually there is a disadvantage with the HP, as I pointed out already in an email-response, as the extra HP packages get registered into the global package db, and therefore pollute the sandbox environment with those extra packages." "The problem is that Cabal prefers the version already installed (i.e. exposed via the global pkg db), when I want the Cabal solver to be as unrestricted as possible in a sandbox in order to get the latest available versions rather than those imposed by the HP." "So is there really a simple way (as you seem to suggest) to hide all the extra HP-provided package versions inside a sandbox?" Recommended solution: > add an entry like this to the constraints field in the cabal.config file in that sandbox: > constraints: attoparsec source "Funny because I have been using the Haskell ecosystem since roughly one or two GHC versions longer than the platform has been around and to me it always felt outdated on average over the lifetime of one HP release. GHC 6.12.1 was released in December 2009, the next platform Beta release was in March 2010 and the next actual release in July 2010. So the platform contained the outdated GHC 6.10 for the better part of a year after the new GHC version was released. GHC 7.0.1 was released in November 2010, again we had to wait until March for a matching platform release. GHC 7.2.1 was release in August 2011 but was marked as a technology preview and completely ignored by the platform. GHC 7.4.1 was released in February 2012, the platform release including it was in June, coinciding almost exactly with the GHC 7.4.2 release which was then ignored by the platform until November, after even GHC 7.6.1 had been released in September 2012 already. To get GHC 7.6 in a platform release we had to wait until May 2013 when the reasonably current (release in April 2013) GHC 7.6.3 was included in the only platform release of that year. In April 2014 we got GHC 7.8.1 and in August 2014 we got a platform release for it which included 7.8.3, the current GHC release at the time and until GHC 7.8.4 was released in December. Not to mention that the HP is not even handled like a regular stable distribution, e.g. it doesn't even update patch levels of packages or compilers." "Haskell does still have major "ease of installation" problems in my experience." "using Haskell Platform at all might cause troubles; it's explicitly recommended against [...] because it uses the global package database." "Haskell Platform feels a bit like Prelude; fine for people who are just using it for small self-teaching projects, but once you're supposed to do something "serious" then people seem to throw up their hands and say "No! never mind that.". I don't know. Maybe I've got the wrong impression. Now that I know enough cabal to get by and not screw myself over (by creating dependency hell), I feel like Haskell Platform might not be relevant to my needs any more." "No, you're perfectly right. And while HP may be up to date right now, it'll be out of date next month and it will keep getting more and more obsolete until the next release in a year or so." "It's still bad and cabal is still bad. I was in #haskell on IRC not too long ago and they couldn't even figure out why a haskell-platform install couldn't upgrade its own cabal with no other packages installed." (Example of Cabal getting blamed for problems with Platform) "If you're on OS X or Linux, you should not use the Haskell Platform. It's a whole lot of pain for literally no gain..." "The Haskell Platform was an attempt to define one but many don't like to depend on it." "I suggest you to use hvr's GHC packages. That way you can simply apt-get install ghc-7.10.1 cabal-install-1.22" "What is the best way of installing GHC on OS X? There's Haskell Platform, Homebrew GHC/Cabal formulas, andHaskell for OS X. I've been told that Homebrew formulas were broken a few months ago, and that Haskell Platform is not good if you plan on doing anything but the most basic things." Example links: https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/390msw/unable_to_install_ghc_and_haskell_plathorm_on/crzijsx https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/390msw/unable_to_install_ghc_and_haskell_plathorm_on/crzipnk https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/390msw/unable_to_install_ghc_and_haskell_plathorm_on/crzi5ls https://github.com/haskell/haskell-platform/issues/165 https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/3b1yuk/haskellinfrastructure_fwd_new_haskell_platform/csi48xe?context=1 https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/3b1yuk/haskellinfrastructure_fwd_new_haskell_platform/csi64m0?context=1 https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/3b1yuk/haskellinfrastructure_fwd_new_haskell_platform/csj5ymx https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/3b1yuk/haskellinfrastructure_fwd_new_haskell_platform/csi85yl https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2zts44/wither_the_platform/cpm8okr https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2zts44/wither_the_platform/cpmk4vt https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2zts44/wither_the_platform/cpmclvo https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2zts44/wither_the_platform/cpm8l4a https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2zts44/wither_the_platform/cpmbopv https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2zts44/wither_the_platform/cpmljeh https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2w3php/venerable_haskell_platform_necessity_or_product/conifgv https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2w3php/venerable_haskell_platform_necessity_or_product/conjrt3 https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2w3php/venerable_haskell_platform_necessity_or_product/conbiu5 https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2vy1lw/new_haskell_homepage_is_live/comcjji?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2vy1lw/new_haskell_homepage_is_live/comgcp4 https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2w3php/venerable_haskell_platform_necessity_or_product/condlnb https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/38br54/help_wanted_for_haskell_platform_website/crtwiff https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/38br54/help_wanted_for_haskell_platform_website/crtxyb5 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8083705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6300091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9808260 http://www.davesquared.net/2014/05/platformless-haskell.html http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32532120/what-is-the-haskell-standard-library/32560351#32560351 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32126861/bytestring-types-fail-when-installing-cabal-install https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/3fqiff/dont_give_up_on_haskell/ctrb083 https://github.com/haskell-infra/hl/issues/93#issuecomment-75862519 https://github.com/haskell-infra/hl/issues/55 http://ircbrowse.net/browse/haskell?id=21305217×tamp=1440372668#t1440372668 https://twitter.com/mac10688/status/644600976897347584 https://twitter.com/JulianBirch/status/640525865793810432 https://twitter.com/dshevchenko_biz/status/640416836694245376 https://github.com/haskell-infra/hl/pull/130 Seem like a long list? Welcome to the bloodbath. I urge you try to find a similar level of discontent in other programming language communities with their community infrastructure like this. My preference? Stop linking people to Platform until, at minimum, the globally installed packages are removed per: https://github.com/haskell/haskell-platform/issues/206#issuecomment-138334410 -- Chris Allen Currently working on http://haskellbook.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From m at tweag.io Mon Sep 21 09:37:55 2015 From: m at tweag.io (Boespflug, Mathieu) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 11:37:55 +0200 Subject: [Haskell-community] Hackage Roots of Trust Message-ID: GershomB wrote: > One related discussion we started to have was if we might want > to do haskell community funding for "phase two" of the update > framework rollout, as discussed in Duncan's talk -- that phase > where we not only implement server trust and signing, but also > author signing. This sounds like a project that potentially the community could consider valuable. However, how much total effort are we talking about here? How much funding would be required? PS: apologies for the top-post. Just signed up to the mailing list and didn't find a way to convince my mail client to set the in-reply-to field appropriately to reference the original message. From fa-ml at ariis.it Mon Sep 21 09:43:19 2015 From: fa-ml at ariis.it (Francesco Ariis) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 11:43:19 +0200 Subject: [Haskell-community] Haskell Platform as the default recommendation considered harmful In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150921094319.GA2934@casa.casa> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 12:05:32AM -0500, Christopher Allen wrote: > Here are some quotes from end-users regarding Platform. This is just what I > found on the web and from skimming IRC logs, it doesn't include many > hundreds more of examples from IRC of new people _in particular_ getting > stuck because they didn't understand they were conflicting with globally > installed packages. I won't comment on what the Haskell Platform should be / whether it achieves it, but it is very difficult to beat the convenience of: apt-get install hakskell-platform (or trusty installer on Windows). I recall my days as a Linux newbie and seeing something like this [1] [2] would have scared me a bit (Why should I run these commands? Won't adding a new repository be risky? What does 'add this to your $PATH' means?), while the HP provides you /instant/ access to everything you need to go through some Haskell entr?e dishes (Learn you a Haskell and Real World Haskell). [1] https://www.haskell.org/downloads/linux [2] https://github.com/bitemyapp/learnhaskell/blob/master/install.md -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 819 bytes Desc: Digital signature URL: From alexander at plaimi.net Mon Sep 21 12:06:30 2015 From: alexander at plaimi.net (Alexander Berntsen) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 14:06:30 +0200 Subject: [Haskell-community] Haskell Platform as the default recommendation considered harmful In-Reply-To: <20150921094319.GA2934@casa.casa> References: <20150921094319.GA2934@casa.casa> Message-ID: <55FFF2C6.4030907@plaimi.net> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 On 21/09/15 11:43, Francesco Ariis wrote: > it is very difficult to beat the convenience of: > > apt-get install hakskell-platform # emerge cabal-install Even shorter. - -- Alexander alexander at plaimi.net https://secure.plaimi.net/~alexander -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJV//LFAAoJENQqWdRUGk8BXBEQAKlxDJf9w6pZTUpyGInENpw7 snTEPk/EUnW42D/JkGiqjoBZaFnSq2xksT8Z5SWivlW2JeXjKk16Mg2JxkT4H/KY ejAx/Woqsh5XBlOjn9bMeUz2IowqujeSAFzoCMb+RyqEejGZJDPI1vuxmGIClIzM BWq8U7/AEetudjZoRnhSib7/wS2cj8OPdab6rpwVVl57n0DGVKrLk5OHFRGdx+RL c0FC5AUjFU+N8WGoMCFBeEwrspw5QSxSkdzqfNnLsEGdy3JSD20Q8aX3/K9qi0In NpNU//OLrR7eKEx4COqMxLotqnfdglSkC25q7yI1pwJjX+/ubNHqSDlGun0KNjq2 23GvWNOC3WimDZTmUEpHxaRyQCIz2PsAfbKbMR76nKWAU8nm6AXf7bwPBNLDLnii MwkpVCn9595IsUWLO2EhV6EN45klO/7AWPASy7S4V8fjwO/DHVRRd31eAcoi3Dfv H+aB5gbEJzUllXkM0l0M5q/HsBJsCQReDLfmDPMNlkVoYkHqlywfBdHIIvdyzBUU UB6JDhkqkjyCi890/rGnmHd7aST6oVdel1pQLOrOVP2A4lZb+QWgM+zvylTTOq33 rJOYtzW4sBHTu3JSS2csStiLa+9hUcOX3J8sHt48bZju5/lYt9M9qrhY0F/4+UGY FGS9ZL9Nf1EmyD3ybsrp =0/kx -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From johnw at newartisans.com Mon Sep 21 15:06:07 2015 From: johnw at newartisans.com (John Wiegley) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 08:06:07 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Haskell Platform as the default recommendation considered harmful In-Reply-To: (Christopher Allen's message of "Mon, 21 Sep 2015 00:05:32 -0500") References: Message-ID: >>>>> Christopher Allen writes: > 1. ghc-pkg > 2. The global vs. user package databases > 3. Cabal > 4. What Platform does to their build environment > New Haskell users are least equipped to understand errors caused by: > 1. Package version conflicts > 2. Something innate to their install, rather than something wrong with their > package constraints. Unless I am mistaken, every one of these points relates to the usage of cabal after installing the platform, rather than to the Platform itself? Once Stack is in the platform, do you agree it will rectify every concern you mentioned? If so, I'd rather not abandon the platform, only to be seen re-adopting it after a few months. John From cma at bitemyapp.com Mon Sep 21 15:35:47 2015 From: cma at bitemyapp.com (Christopher Allen) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 10:35:47 -0500 Subject: [Haskell-community] Haskell Platform as the default recommendation considered harmful In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Resending because mailman held my message for moderation because of an attached image of the current downloads page. The issue is that Platform installs packages into the global package database, usually causing conflicts if you're building a package that needs something newer. The point isn't abandoning, it's changing the default recommendation on the Haskell.org site to things that work out of the box more often for users until Platform is fixed. I haven't used a hypothetical Platform that includes Stack, it's going to depend entirely on how well it works. If it's equivalent to the minimal installs we've been directing people towards (nothing extra in the global pkg db) but with Stack included, then that'd probably be fine. That's not here _now_, so let's fix the website. People pushed back on this and the committee has chosen to ignore it, again and again, now the excuse of "oh a fix is coming" is about to be used to push it off again. The downloads page should never have been changed to emphasize Platform again to begin with because it hadn't been fixed yet. You don't expect us to believe the current presentation is neutral, do you? (http://imgur.com/iQm5OWR) You make the alternatives to Platform sound like a construction kit, not the means of installing Haskell that has become the default recommendation for _many_ because of the problems with Platform over the years. >especially for new users interested in using frameworks with complex dependency structures. Really? Complex dependency structures? The committee has been bulldozing over the concerns of end-users for too long and too many times. How is this the committee a body acting on behalf of the community when everything the community says appears to go nowhere, even on something as straight-forward as making sure the recommendations are what works best and most often? On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 10:06 AM, John Wiegley wrote: > >>>>> Christopher Allen writes: > > > 1. ghc-pkg > > 2. The global vs. user package databases > > 3. Cabal > > 4. What Platform does to their build environment > > > New Haskell users are least equipped to understand errors caused by: > > > 1. Package version conflicts > > 2. Something innate to their install, rather than something wrong with > their > > package constraints. > > Unless I am mistaken, every one of these points relates to the usage of > cabal > after installing the platform, rather than to the Platform itself? > > Once Stack is in the platform, do you agree it will rectify every concern > you > mentioned? If so, I'd rather not abandon the platform, only to be seen > re-adopting it after a few months. > > John > -- Chris Allen Currently working on http://haskellbook.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cma at bitemyapp.com Mon Sep 21 15:28:41 2015 From: cma at bitemyapp.com (Christopher Allen) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 10:28:41 -0500 Subject: [Haskell-community] Haskell Platform as the default recommendation considered harmful In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The issue is that Platform installs packages into the global package database, usually causing conflicts if you're building a package that needs something newer. The point isn't abandoning, it's changing the default recommendation on the Haskell.org site to things that work out of the box more often for users until Platform is fixed. I haven't used a hypothetical Platform that includes Stack, it's going to depend entirely on how well it works. If it's equivalent to the minimal installs we've been directing people towards (nothing extra in the global pkg db) but with Stack included, then that'd probably be fine. That's not here _now_, so let's fix the website. People pushed back on this and the committee has chosen to ignore it, again and again, now the excuse of "oh a fix is coming" is about to be used to push it off again. The downloads page should never have been changed to emphasize Platform again to begin with because it hadn't been fixed yet. You don't expect us to believe the current presentation is neutral, do you? (Attached screenshot) You make the alternatives to Platform sound like a construction kit, not the means of installing Haskell that has become the default recommendation for _many_ because of the problems with Platform over the years. >especially for new users interested in using frameworks with complex dependency structures. Really? Complex dependency structures? The committee has been bulldozing over the concerns of end-users for too long and too many times. How is this the committee a body acting on behalf of the community when everything the community says appears to go nowhere, even on something as straight-forward as making sure the recommendations are what works best and most often? On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 10:06 AM, John Wiegley wrote: > >>>>> Christopher Allen writes: > > > 1. ghc-pkg > > 2. The global vs. user package databases > > 3. Cabal > > 4. What Platform does to their build environment > > > New Haskell users are least equipped to understand errors caused by: > > > 1. Package version conflicts > > 2. Something innate to their install, rather than something wrong with > their > > package constraints. > > Unless I am mistaken, every one of these points relates to the usage of > cabal > after installing the platform, rather than to the Platform itself? > > Once Stack is in the platform, do you agree it will rectify every concern > you > mentioned? If so, I'd rather not abandon the platform, only to be seen > re-adopting it after a few months. > > John > -- Chris Allen Currently working on http://haskellbook.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Screenshot from 2015-09-21 10:23:47.png Type: image/png Size: 130811 bytes Desc: not available URL: From michael at fpcomplete.com Mon Sep 21 16:18:19 2015 From: michael at fpcomplete.com (Michael Snoyman) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 19:18:19 +0300 Subject: [Haskell-community] Haskell Platform as the default recommendation considered harmful In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 6:06 PM, John Wiegley wrote: > >>>>> Christopher Allen writes: > > > 1. ghc-pkg > > 2. The global vs. user package databases > > 3. Cabal > > 4. What Platform does to their build environment > > > New Haskell users are least equipped to understand errors caused by: > > > 1. Package version conflicts > > 2. Something innate to their install, rather than something wrong with > their > > package constraints. > > Unless I am mistaken, every one of these points relates to the usage of > cabal > after installing the platform, rather than to the Platform itself? > > Once Stack is in the platform, do you agree it will rectify every concern > you > mentioned? If so, I'd rather not abandon the platform, only to be seen > re-adopting it after a few months. > > John > _______________________________________________ > In theory: yes, using Stack with the Haskell Platform will solve this problems. However, theory does not always add up to reality, for various reasons we may not be able to predict. I'll give a few examples: * There's no clear timeframe for the next HP release including Stack * It's unclear what exactly will be in the global database at that time * It's unclear how MSYS2 will be handled on Windows * There are a few bugs that have been reported to the Stack and conduit repos recently[1][2] about bad interactions with the global packages from HP * Non-unique install package IDs can lead to shadowing with HP[3] * There's no talk of the upgrade story around HP We can find all of these things out, but making decisions today based on a theoretical future state makes no sense to me. Chris has done a great job here of collecting a lot of the reasons why so many people have been advocating against the Haskell Platform. I do not believe the current wording on the downloads page, nor any of the discussions we've had via email or issue trackers, comes close to reflecting what the community actually believes is best practice today. My recommendation: we look at the current state of all tooling, and decide what will be the best choice for most new users to Haskell. We don't need to cater to experienced users, since we all know about the choices. The downloads page should be explicitly about first impressions with new users. And we should assume those first impressions will be happening today, not a month, six months, or two years from now. Michael [1] https://github.com/commercialhaskell/stack/issues/980 [2] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32444762/cabal-repl-wont-run-cant-load-so-dll-for [3] https://github.com/haskell/cabal/issues/2830 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnw at newartisans.com Mon Sep 21 16:19:53 2015 From: johnw at newartisans.com (John Wiegley) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 09:19:53 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Haskell Platform as the default recommendation considered harmful In-Reply-To: (Christopher Allen's message of "Mon, 21 Sep 2015 10:28:41 -0500") References: Message-ID: >>>>> Christopher Allen writes: > The committee has been bulldozing over the concerns of end-users for too > long and too many times. How is this the committee a body acting on behalf > of the community when everything the community says appears to go nowhere, > even on something as straight-forward as making sure the recommendations are > what works best and most often? If you would like to discuss the way the committee operates, can we do that in a separate thread? I'd prefer to focus on the Platform and download options here. I'm wondering if all this comes down to the time horizon. If a new HP is out with Stack in a few months, do you believe it's worth editing the downloads page now? Or are you asking for it to happen now because you'd rather something happen, than risk a delay where nothing happens? John From cma at bitemyapp.com Mon Sep 21 16:29:12 2015 From: cma at bitemyapp.com (Christopher Allen) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 11:29:12 -0500 Subject: [Haskell-community] Haskell Platform as the default recommendation considered harmful In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >I'm wondering if all this comes down to the time horizon. If a new HP is out with Stack in a few months, do you believe it's worth editing the downloads page now? Or are you asking for it to happen now because you'd rather something happen, than risk a delay where nothing happens? Edit it now because the people who come to the site to learn how they should install Haskell over the next few months matter. It should take a couple minutes to make the change, I'd say edit it now to recommend the existing Minimal GHC installation procedures that were in place. We can use the previous versions as a baseline. >Or are you asking for it to happen now because you'd rather something happen, than risk a delay where nothing happens? If Platform doesn't get fixed, that's on Platform. It's also a separate problem. The downloads page should reflect the current, best understanding of what's the most problem-free way for people, especially beginners who can't evaluate or compare alternatives, to install GHC and the associated kit. That has not been Platform for some time now. Is there a problem with changing the downloads page now and changing it again months from now after the alternative you're anticipating has been tested? Is there anything blocking this? Do you need me to write the PR? On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 11:19 AM, John Wiegley wrote: > >>>>> Christopher Allen writes: > > > The committee has been bulldozing over the concerns of end-users for too > > long and too many times. How is this the committee a body acting on > behalf > > of the community when everything the community says appears to go > nowhere, > > even on something as straight-forward as making sure the recommendations > are > > what works best and most often? > > If you would like to discuss the way the committee operates, can we do > that in > a separate thread? I'd prefer to focus on the Platform and download options > here. > > I'm wondering if all this comes down to the time horizon. If a new HP is > out > with Stack in a few months, do you believe it's worth editing the downloads > page now? Or are you asking for it to happen now because you'd rather > something happen, than risk a delay where nothing happens? > > John > -- Chris Allen Currently working on http://haskellbook.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cma at bitemyapp.com Mon Sep 21 17:23:19 2015 From: cma at bitemyapp.com (Christopher Allen) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 12:23:19 -0500 Subject: [Haskell-community] Haskell Platform as the default recommendation considered harmful In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We should change it to what it was: the suite of Minimal GHC installs for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. This was well attested as the default recommendation, particularly among people that have to help new people regularly. We can revisit changing the downloads page after it's fixed when other options become available and well-tested (Platform+Stack, Stack by itself, wildcard, whatever). On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 11:18 AM, Michael Snoyman wrote: > > > On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 6:06 PM, John Wiegley > wrote: > >> >>>>> Christopher Allen writes: >> >> > 1. ghc-pkg >> > 2. The global vs. user package databases >> > 3. Cabal >> > 4. What Platform does to their build environment >> >> > New Haskell users are least equipped to understand errors caused by: >> >> > 1. Package version conflicts >> > 2. Something innate to their install, rather than something wrong with >> their >> > package constraints. >> >> Unless I am mistaken, every one of these points relates to the usage of >> cabal >> after installing the platform, rather than to the Platform itself? >> >> Once Stack is in the platform, do you agree it will rectify every concern >> you >> mentioned? If so, I'd rather not abandon the platform, only to be seen >> re-adopting it after a few months. >> >> John >> _______________________________________________ >> > > In theory: yes, using Stack with the Haskell Platform will solve this > problems. However, theory does not always add up to reality, for various > reasons we may not be able to predict. I'll give a few examples: > > * There's no clear timeframe for the next HP release including Stack > * It's unclear what exactly will be in the global database at that time > * It's unclear how MSYS2 will be handled on Windows > * There are a few bugs that have been reported to the Stack and conduit > repos recently[1][2] about bad interactions with the global packages from HP > * Non-unique install package IDs can lead to shadowing with HP[3] > * There's no talk of the upgrade story around HP > > We can find all of these things out, but making decisions today based on a > theoretical future state makes no sense to me. > > Chris has done a great job here of collecting a lot of the reasons why so > many people have been advocating against the Haskell Platform. I do not > believe the current wording on the downloads page, nor any of the > discussions we've had via email or issue trackers, comes close to > reflecting what the community actually believes is best practice today. > > My recommendation: we look at the current state of all tooling, and decide > what will be the best choice for most new users to Haskell. We don't need > to cater to experienced users, since we all know about the choices. The > downloads page should be explicitly about first impressions with new users. > And we should assume those first impressions will be happening today, not a > month, six months, or two years from now. > > Michael > > [1] https://github.com/commercialhaskell/stack/issues/980 > [2] > http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32444762/cabal-repl-wont-run-cant-load-so-dll-for > [3] https://github.com/haskell/cabal/issues/2830 > -- Chris Allen Currently working on http://haskellbook.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnw at newartisans.com Mon Sep 21 17:27:02 2015 From: johnw at newartisans.com (John Wiegley) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 10:27:02 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Haskell Platform as the default recommendation considered harmful In-Reply-To: (Christopher Allen's message of "Mon, 21 Sep 2015 11:29:12 -0500") References: Message-ID: >>>>> Christopher Allen writes: > I'd say edit it now to recommend the existing Minimal GHC installation > procedures that were in place. > > Is there a problem with changing the downloads page now and changing it > again months from now after the alternative you're anticipating has been > tested? > > Is there anything blocking this? Do you need me to write the PR? I'm currently in the process of rewriting the download page to reflect the three main alternatives (HP, Stack, Minimal). I'll post the final draft here when it's ready (likely tomorrow), after which I'd appreciate hearing your feedback before we take it live. However, I'm not ready to simply delete the HP reference just yet. It's possible we could reorder the options, though. At the moment we're using HP/Stack/Minimal. You'll see what I mean when the draft is ready. John From johnw at newartisans.com Thu Sep 24 05:20:17 2015 From: johnw at newartisans.com (John Wiegley) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2015 22:20:17 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page Message-ID: As mentioned earlier, I've been working on a draft version of the new Haskell download page in consultation with Simon PJ, Michael Snoyman, and Gershom Bazerman. The goal has been twofold: a) add stack as an explicit option, and b) add text to each option indicating clearly what it provides and where to get further help, so users can understand the options and make an informed choice. We've sought to keep the text factual, rather than imply that one option is "best" for any particular class of user, since opinions vary so widely on this point. At the following link, you'll find a draft version of the new page for comment: https://gist.github.com/jwiegley/153d968ddfc9046ee4c9 Hopefully it can go live on haskell.org next week, so please contribute your edits here, or by pull request. The goal is to explain each option so that people can make an informed decision. However, the order of presentation does imply that whatever comes first is "preferred" even if that is not the intent. The order currently given is HP, Stack, Minimal. Chris has already made a few points about changing this order, so let's continue that discussion and see where it leads us. Bear in mind that this is (hopefully) only an interim state. The plan is to add Stack to the Platform, and render the Platform minimal, which will consolidate this page down to a single, recommended download path. At the bottom of the gist are incomplete sections on third party libraries and alternate installation approaches. These have yet to be written. The hope is to resolve the top content first and sort the rest out after; however, ideas for that content is most welcome too. Thank you, John Wiegley From michael at fpcomplete.com Thu Sep 24 06:32:37 2015 From: michael at fpcomplete.com (Michael Snoyman) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 09:32:37 +0300 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 8:20 AM, John Wiegley wrote: > As mentioned earlier, I've been working on a draft version of the new > Haskell > download page in consultation with Simon PJ, Michael Snoyman, and Gershom > Bazerman. The goal has been twofold: > > a) add stack as an explicit option, and > > b) add text to each option indicating clearly what it provides and where > to > get further help, so users can understand the options and make an > informed choice. > > We've sought to keep the text factual, rather than imply that one option is > "best" for any particular class of user, since opinions vary so widely on > this > point. > > At the following link, you'll find a draft version of the new page for > comment: > > https://gist.github.com/jwiegley/153d968ddfc9046ee4c9 > > Hopefully it can go live on haskell.org next week, so please contribute > your > edits here, or by pull request. The goal is to explain each option so that > people can make an informed decision. > > However, the order of presentation does imply that whatever comes first is > "preferred" even if that is not the intent. The order currently given is > HP, > Stack, Minimal. Chris has already made a few points about changing this > order, > so let's continue that discussion and see where it leads us. > > Bear in mind that this is (hopefully) only an interim state. The plan is to > add Stack to the Platform, and render the Platform minimal, which will > consolidate this page down to a single, recommended download path. > > At the bottom of the gist are incomplete sections on third party libraries > and > alternate installation approaches. These have yet to be written. The hope > is > to resolve the top content first and sort the rest out after; however, > ideas > for that content is most welcome too. > > Thank you, > John Wiegley > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > Firstly, thank you John for working on this. Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even visit this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation around tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page says. I'd like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." I haven't heard anyone object to this idea before. I'll repeat what I've said in various other places: given the current state of the Haskell Platform and the fact that it's known to cause many problems - especially for new users - it should not be top option. I recommend putting Stack at the top. My arguments are: 1. It's being designed from the ground up to give a good new user experience in terms of UX 2. Curated package sets by default is (IMO) the best option for new users. We don't want a new user to download a massive installer, run `cabal install foo`, only to find out that there's a bug in the most recent version of foo preventing it from installing. (That's not even getting into issues of dependency solving.) 3. There's a complete guide to using Stack available which is targeted at new users. A common complaint we see about people starting with cabal is that they trash their package databases by not using sandboxes, and then being told they did it the wrong way. Both the change in default behavior and the guide will help that problem. 4. New users will often not know in advance which version of GHC they really need. Stack can handle that for them by downloading the appropriate GHC for their project. 5. There's a clear upgrade story for Stack, including: upgrading Stack itself, upgrading to new snapshots, and upgrading GHC. 6. It's already built for a large number of OSes 7. On Windows, it's the only solution right now that provides a full MSYS2 + Pacman setup, allowing both building the network package without modifying the PATH, and installing new system libraries via pacman[1] I'll stop there, it's already a pretty long list. I'd like to make a request for the rest of this discussion: instead of arguing about what the current state of the downloads page is, or what may be happening in the future, can we focus on what will be best for new users today? If someone wants to make an argument for putting the HP at the top, for example, it should be based on "the HP is the best choice for new users today because X." Michael [1] https://twitter.com/snoyberg/status/638359459304239104 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From alan.zimm at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 11:08:06 2015 From: alan.zimm at gmail.com (Alan & Kim Zimmerman) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 13:08:06 +0200 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is intended to be an interim page. Perhaps it then makes sense to explicitly list the environments where the current HP is known to install cleanly, or alternatively the ones where it is known not to. This can help a new user to decide which option to use. Alan On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 8:32 AM, Michael Snoyman wrote: > > > On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 8:20 AM, John Wiegley > wrote: > >> As mentioned earlier, I've been working on a draft version of the new >> Haskell >> download page in consultation with Simon PJ, Michael Snoyman, and Gershom >> Bazerman. The goal has been twofold: >> >> a) add stack as an explicit option, and >> >> b) add text to each option indicating clearly what it provides and >> where to >> get further help, so users can understand the options and make an >> informed choice. >> >> We've sought to keep the text factual, rather than imply that one option >> is >> "best" for any particular class of user, since opinions vary so widely on >> this >> point. >> >> At the following link, you'll find a draft version of the new page for >> comment: >> >> https://gist.github.com/jwiegley/153d968ddfc9046ee4c9 >> >> Hopefully it can go live on haskell.org next week, so please contribute >> your >> edits here, or by pull request. The goal is to explain each option so that >> people can make an informed decision. >> >> However, the order of presentation does imply that whatever comes first is >> "preferred" even if that is not the intent. The order currently given is >> HP, >> Stack, Minimal. Chris has already made a few points about changing this >> order, >> so let's continue that discussion and see where it leads us. >> >> Bear in mind that this is (hopefully) only an interim state. The plan is >> to >> add Stack to the Platform, and render the Platform minimal, which will >> consolidate this page down to a single, recommended download path. >> >> At the bottom of the gist are incomplete sections on third party >> libraries and >> alternate installation approaches. These have yet to be written. The hope >> is >> to resolve the top content first and sort the rest out after; however, >> ideas >> for that content is most welcome too. >> >> Thank you, >> John Wiegley >> _______________________________________________ >> Haskell-community mailing list >> Haskell-community at haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >> > > > Firstly, thank you John for working on this. > > Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads > page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even > visit this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation > around tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page > says. I'd like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." > I haven't heard anyone object to this idea before. > > I'll repeat what I've said in various other places: given the current > state of the Haskell Platform and the fact that it's known to cause many > problems - especially for new users - it should not be top option. I > recommend putting Stack at the top. My arguments are: > > 1. It's being designed from the ground up to give a good new user > experience in terms of UX > 2. Curated package sets by default is (IMO) the best option for new users. > We don't want a new user to download a massive installer, run `cabal > install foo`, only to find out that there's a bug in the most recent > version of foo preventing it from installing. (That's not even getting into > issues of dependency solving.) > 3. There's a complete guide to using Stack available which is targeted at > new users. A common complaint we see about people starting with cabal is > that they trash their package databases by not using sandboxes, and then > being told they did it the wrong way. Both the change in default behavior > and the guide will help that problem. > 4. New users will often not know in advance which version of GHC they > really need. Stack can handle that for them by downloading the appropriate > GHC for their project. > 5. There's a clear upgrade story for Stack, including: upgrading Stack > itself, upgrading to new snapshots, and upgrading GHC. > 6. It's already built for a large number of OSes > 7. On Windows, it's the only solution right now that provides a full MSYS2 > + Pacman setup, allowing both building the network package without > modifying the PATH, and installing new system libraries via pacman[1] > > I'll stop there, it's already a pretty long list. I'd like to make a > request for the rest of this discussion: instead of arguing about what the > current state of the downloads page is, or what may be happening in the > future, can we focus on what will be best for new users today? If someone > wants to make an argument for putting the HP at the top, for example, it > should be based on "the HP is the best choice for new users today because > X." > > Michael > > [1] https://twitter.com/snoyberg/status/638359459304239104 > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From michael at fpcomplete.com Thu Sep 24 11:38:06 2015 From: michael at fpcomplete.com (Michael Snoyman) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 11:38:06 +0000 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It's not really a question of specific environments (though the situation is worse on Windows). The main problem is that the presence of extra packages in the global package database leads to lots of problems (usually in the form of user confusion, since cabal-install warns them about breaking things). In addition, the platform is currently only shipping with cabal-install, and not with Stack, making the points I make in favor of Stack's defaults (isolation-by-default, curation) relevant. We can discuss the future when the HP is no longer shipping with global packages and includes Stack in terms of my points above, but I think we should save that for a separate thread once those changes land. On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 2:08 PM, Alan & Kim Zimmerman wrote: > This is intended to be an interim page. > > Perhaps it then makes sense to explicitly list the environments where the > current HP is known to install cleanly, or alternatively the ones where it > is known not to. This can help a new user to decide which option to use. > > Alan > > > On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 8:32 AM, Michael Snoyman > wrote: > >> >> >> On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 8:20 AM, John Wiegley >> wrote: >> >>> As mentioned earlier, I've been working on a draft version of the new >>> Haskell >>> download page in consultation with Simon PJ, Michael Snoyman, and Gershom >>> Bazerman. The goal has been twofold: >>> >>> a) add stack as an explicit option, and >>> >>> b) add text to each option indicating clearly what it provides and >>> where to >>> get further help, so users can understand the options and make an >>> informed choice. >>> >>> We've sought to keep the text factual, rather than imply that one option >>> is >>> "best" for any particular class of user, since opinions vary so widely >>> on this >>> point. >>> >>> At the following link, you'll find a draft version of the new page for >>> comment: >>> >>> https://gist.github.com/jwiegley/153d968ddfc9046ee4c9 >>> >>> Hopefully it can go live on haskell.org next week, so please contribute >>> your >>> edits here, or by pull request. The goal is to explain each option so >>> that >>> people can make an informed decision. >>> >>> However, the order of presentation does imply that whatever comes first >>> is >>> "preferred" even if that is not the intent. The order currently given is >>> HP, >>> Stack, Minimal. Chris has already made a few points about changing this >>> order, >>> so let's continue that discussion and see where it leads us. >>> >>> Bear in mind that this is (hopefully) only an interim state. The plan is >>> to >>> add Stack to the Platform, and render the Platform minimal, which will >>> consolidate this page down to a single, recommended download path. >>> >>> At the bottom of the gist are incomplete sections on third party >>> libraries and >>> alternate installation approaches. These have yet to be written. The >>> hope is >>> to resolve the top content first and sort the rest out after; however, >>> ideas >>> for that content is most welcome too. >>> >>> Thank you, >>> John Wiegley >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Haskell-community mailing list >>> Haskell-community at haskell.org >>> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >>> >> >> >> Firstly, thank you John for working on this. >> >> Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads >> page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even >> visit this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation >> around tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page >> says. I'd like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." >> I haven't heard anyone object to this idea before. >> >> I'll repeat what I've said in various other places: given the current >> state of the Haskell Platform and the fact that it's known to cause many >> problems - especially for new users - it should not be top option. I >> recommend putting Stack at the top. My arguments are: >> >> 1. It's being designed from the ground up to give a good new user >> experience in terms of UX >> 2. Curated package sets by default is (IMO) the best option for new >> users. We don't want a new user to download a massive installer, run `cabal >> install foo`, only to find out that there's a bug in the most recent >> version of foo preventing it from installing. (That's not even getting into >> issues of dependency solving.) >> 3. There's a complete guide to using Stack available which is targeted at >> new users. A common complaint we see about people starting with cabal is >> that they trash their package databases by not using sandboxes, and then >> being told they did it the wrong way. Both the change in default behavior >> and the guide will help that problem. >> 4. New users will often not know in advance which version of GHC they >> really need. Stack can handle that for them by downloading the appropriate >> GHC for their project. >> 5. There's a clear upgrade story for Stack, including: upgrading Stack >> itself, upgrading to new snapshots, and upgrading GHC. >> 6. It's already built for a large number of OSes >> 7. On Windows, it's the only solution right now that provides a full >> MSYS2 + Pacman setup, allowing both building the network package without >> modifying the PATH, and installing new system libraries via pacman[1] >> >> I'll stop there, it's already a pretty long list. I'd like to make a >> request for the rest of this discussion: instead of arguing about what the >> current state of the downloads page is, or what may be happening in the >> future, can we focus on what will be best for new users today? If someone >> wants to make an argument for putting the HP at the top, for example, it >> should be based on "the HP is the best choice for new users today because >> X." >> >> Michael >> >> [1] https://twitter.com/snoyberg/status/638359459304239104 >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Haskell-community mailing list >> Haskell-community at haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gershomb at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 14:10:36 2015 From: gershomb at gmail.com (Gershom B) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:10:36 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On September 24, 2015 at 2:33:12 AM, Michael Snoyman (michael at fpcomplete.com) wrote: > Firstly, thank you John for working on this. >? > Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads > page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even > visit this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation > around tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page > says. I'd like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." > I haven't heard anyone object to this idea before. >? > I'll repeat what I've said in various other places: given the current state > of the Haskell Platform and the fact that it's known to cause many problems > - especially for new users - it should not be top option. I recommend > putting Stack at the top. My arguments are: Given the concerns about the current platform and the global package database, I would advocate considering a Minimal-first order. The caveat here is that minimal, which includes stack for Windows and OS X, should also include stack for Linux installs ? this is just a ?matter of a pull request to add stack instructions to the various install pages, so can be part if this discussion. Stack covers certain but not all new-user scenarios well. The main thing is, I think when people go to a ?download? page, they expect to be able to directly download a compiler or interpreter. That is to say, they want GHC, and the tools to use it, directly. Which is also how most documentation in the world describes using Haskell. If users download stack first, they must also then use it to download GHC. And at this point, if they want to run or use ghc or ghci, they must do so _via_ stack, and will probably find themselves in situations creating yaml files earlier than they may have otherwise. In my mind, this is not an optimal new-user experience, though it is a good curated experience for certain use cases to be sure. Pointing people to GHC and cabal and also stack allows them to A) avoid the global package database issue but B) nonetheless use ?bare? ghc and ghci when they desire and C) then choose to use cabal or stack to manage their package installs and builds, and hence grow into any particular style they want. My point being this ? I agree that until we make the platform more minimal, it is perhaps best that it not be the first option on the page. However, I do _not_ want the first option to be something that forces the choices between cabal and stack ? rather I want it to be something that enables both choices. All of Michael?s points in favor of Stack do not evaporate when it _also_ ships with a ghc and a cabal binary directly. So let?s just make sure all our minimal instructions do this, and it suffices! Cheers, Gershom P.S. On another note, I want to warn against the hypothetical one size-fits-all ?new user? as a good benchmark in this sense: ?experienced haskellers? are more uniformly alike than new users are. This is because experienced haskellers all share a certain common knowledge base. New users are all completely different. Some want to build deployable projects early on, others want to explore books, others want to build a few modules for their own use for recreational math, still others are following along with a particular course. Some have only windows experience and expect to click all the things, some only ruby experience and expect a giant base library, some are old *nix hands and don?t know why everything can?t just use autoconf, etc. Experienced haskell users can adapt themselves to a variety of workflows more easily, because they know what?s going on. Default workflow certainly affects new-users much more. But, because they are all different, the same default workflow won?t be the same pleasant experience for every new user. From michael at fpcomplete.com Thu Sep 24 14:49:28 2015 From: michael at fpcomplete.com (Michael Snoyman) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 17:49:28 +0300 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 5:10 PM, Gershom B wrote: > On September 24, 2015 at 2:33:12 AM, Michael Snoyman ( > michael at fpcomplete.com) wrote: > > Firstly, thank you John for working on this. > > > > Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads > > page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even > > visit this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation > > around tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page > > says. I'd like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new > user." > > I haven't heard anyone object to this idea before. > > > > I'll repeat what I've said in various other places: given the current > state > > of the Haskell Platform and the fact that it's known to cause many > problems > > - especially for new users - it should not be top option. I recommend > > putting Stack at the top. My arguments are: > > Given the concerns about the current platform and the global package > database, I would advocate considering a Minimal-first order. The caveat > here is that minimal, which includes stack for Windows and OS X, should > also include stack for Linux installs ? this is just a matter of a pull > request to add stack instructions to the various install pages, so can be > part if this discussion. > > Stack covers certain but not all new-user scenarios well. The main thing > is, I think when people go to a ?download? page, they expect to be able to > directly download a compiler or interpreter. That is to say, they want GHC, > and the tools to use it, directly. Which is also how most documentation in > the world describes using Haskell. If users download stack first, they must > also then use it to download GHC. And at this point, if they want to run or > use ghc or ghci, they must do so _via_ stack, and will probably find > themselves in situations creating yaml files earlier than they may have > otherwise. > > In my mind, this is not an optimal new-user experience, though it is a > good curated experience for certain use cases to be sure. > > Pointing people to GHC and cabal and also stack allows them to A) avoid > the global package database issue but B) nonetheless use ?bare? ghc and > ghci when they desire and C) then choose to use cabal or stack to manage > their package installs and builds, and hence grow into any particular style > they want. > > My point being this ? I agree that until we make the platform more > minimal, it is perhaps best that it not be the first option on the page. > However, I do _not_ want the first option to be something that forces the > choices between cabal and stack ? rather I want it to be something that > enables both choices. > > All of Michael?s points in favor of Stack do not evaporate when it _also_ > ships with a ghc and a cabal binary directly. So let?s just make sure all > our minimal instructions do this, and it suffices! > > Cheers, > Gershom > > P.S. On another note, I want to warn against the hypothetical one > size-fits-all ?new user? as a good benchmark in this sense: ?experienced > haskellers? are more uniformly alike than new users are. This is because > experienced haskellers all share a certain common knowledge base. New users > are all completely different. Some want to build deployable projects early > on, others want to explore books, others want to build a few modules for > their own use for recreational math, still others are following along with > a particular course. Some have only windows experience and expect to click > all the things, some only ruby experience and expect a giant base library, > some are old *nix hands and don?t know why everything can?t just use > autoconf, etc. Experienced haskell users can adapt themselves to a variety > of workflows more easily, because they know what?s going on. Default > workflow certainly affects new-users much more. But, because they are all > different, the same default workflow won?t be the same pleasant experience > for every new user. > If we're talking about minimal installer + link to Stack documentation vs Stack itself, the difference is getting much slimmer. However, I would like to work out a few different common use cases for which I think there's a big difference: * A user wants to write Haskell code, using only libraries shipped with GHC. For this case, the minimal installer is probably preferable, since the user can use either `ghc` directly or `stack`. * A user wants to use lots of upstream libraries. In this case, the ability to run GHC from the command line directly may be a *disadvantage*. The most logical way to get those packages into the global or user package database (instead of a sandbox) is via `cabal install ...`, but we've all been through the pain of non-sandboxed cabal usage already, and don't want to recommend it. * For downloading an installer that will be reused on multiple machines, minimal installers are definitely preferable (in fact, I made a point of drawing that out in my original PR). IME with new users - which granted may have selection bias - the vast majority of people fall into category two, which is why I would still recommend Stack over minimal installers as the primary link. Something which may make more sense is to present Stack as a build tool, and then recommend two ways of getting it ("raw" or "with GHC"). It should also be noted that on Windows, that are some definite advantages to Stack over MinGHC around PATH management. Currently, to account for cabal-install, MinGHC puts all tools (including MSYS2) on the PATH, whereas Stack is able to work with just itself (since it modifies the PATH before calling Cabal-the-library). Finally, I think the upgrade story for Stack is still a solid point in its favor in all of this. Michael -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From strake888 at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 14:53:38 2015 From: strake888 at gmail.com (M Farkas-Dyck) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 06:53:38 -0800 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I feel compelled to defend the honor of Unix users here. On 24/09/2015, Gershom B wrote: > some are old *nix hands and don?t know why everything can?t just use autoconf Rather old GNU hands; autoconf is emphatically NOT part of Research Unix or early BSD. From cma at bitemyapp.com Thu Sep 24 15:37:08 2015 From: cma at bitemyapp.com (Christopher Allen) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:37:08 -0500 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I agree with Michael in his characterization of the usage scenarios and how common they are. When I mentioned Stack in my previous email, it had more to do with my own fussing about smoothing out any possible wrinkles. My coauthor Julie and I are going to collaborate on a tutorial for Stack soon. Here's some feedback from one of the users in #haskell-beginners on IRC: >We had our first haskell meetup here in SLC a month or so ago and had everyone use stack to get going. Seemed to go quite well. Almost no problems and everyone from experienced to new was up and running pretty quick. So, my preference is Stack, followed by Minimal (those that want it, will know they want it) - and that's it. I don't think a hybrid makes sense. To be clear, my priority is that Platform get _off_ the downloads page for now. If we can get Stack as the primary recommendation, I think that would be a benefit to the new users of Haskell. Much of the industry is moving towards tools that manage your entire programming language environment (OPAM, rvm, nvm, etc.) and Stack is stealing all the right ideas here, putting things together in a way I think is close to ideal for Haskellers. On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 9:49 AM, Michael Snoyman wrote: > > > On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 5:10 PM, Gershom B wrote: > >> On September 24, 2015 at 2:33:12 AM, Michael Snoyman ( >> michael at fpcomplete.com) wrote: >> > Firstly, thank you John for working on this. >> > >> > Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads >> > page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even >> > visit this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation >> > around tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page >> > says. I'd like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new >> user." >> > I haven't heard anyone object to this idea before. >> > >> > I'll repeat what I've said in various other places: given the current >> state >> > of the Haskell Platform and the fact that it's known to cause many >> problems >> > - especially for new users - it should not be top option. I recommend >> > putting Stack at the top. My arguments are: >> >> Given the concerns about the current platform and the global package >> database, I would advocate considering a Minimal-first order. The caveat >> here is that minimal, which includes stack for Windows and OS X, should >> also include stack for Linux installs ? this is just a matter of a pull >> request to add stack instructions to the various install pages, so can be >> part if this discussion. >> >> Stack covers certain but not all new-user scenarios well. The main thing >> is, I think when people go to a ?download? page, they expect to be able to >> directly download a compiler or interpreter. That is to say, they want GHC, >> and the tools to use it, directly. Which is also how most documentation in >> the world describes using Haskell. If users download stack first, they must >> also then use it to download GHC. And at this point, if they want to run or >> use ghc or ghci, they must do so _via_ stack, and will probably find >> themselves in situations creating yaml files earlier than they may have >> otherwise. >> >> In my mind, this is not an optimal new-user experience, though it is a >> good curated experience for certain use cases to be sure. >> >> Pointing people to GHC and cabal and also stack allows them to A) avoid >> the global package database issue but B) nonetheless use ?bare? ghc and >> ghci when they desire and C) then choose to use cabal or stack to manage >> their package installs and builds, and hence grow into any particular style >> they want. >> >> My point being this ? I agree that until we make the platform more >> minimal, it is perhaps best that it not be the first option on the page. >> However, I do _not_ want the first option to be something that forces the >> choices between cabal and stack ? rather I want it to be something that >> enables both choices. >> >> All of Michael?s points in favor of Stack do not evaporate when it _also_ >> ships with a ghc and a cabal binary directly. So let?s just make sure all >> our minimal instructions do this, and it suffices! >> >> Cheers, >> Gershom >> >> P.S. On another note, I want to warn against the hypothetical one >> size-fits-all ?new user? as a good benchmark in this sense: ?experienced >> haskellers? are more uniformly alike than new users are. This is because >> experienced haskellers all share a certain common knowledge base. New users >> are all completely different. Some want to build deployable projects early >> on, others want to explore books, others want to build a few modules for >> their own use for recreational math, still others are following along with >> a particular course. Some have only windows experience and expect to click >> all the things, some only ruby experience and expect a giant base library, >> some are old *nix hands and don?t know why everything can?t just use >> autoconf, etc. Experienced haskell users can adapt themselves to a variety >> of workflows more easily, because they know what?s going on. Default >> workflow certainly affects new-users much more. But, because they are all >> different, the same default workflow won?t be the same pleasant experience >> for every new user. >> > > If we're talking about minimal installer + link to Stack documentation vs > Stack itself, the difference is getting much slimmer. However, I would like > to work out a few different common use cases for which I think there's a > big difference: > > * A user wants to write Haskell code, using only libraries shipped with > GHC. For this case, the minimal installer is probably preferable, since the > user can use either `ghc` directly or `stack`. > * A user wants to use lots of upstream libraries. In this case, the > ability to run GHC from the command line directly may be a *disadvantage*. > The most logical way to get those packages into the global or user package > database (instead of a sandbox) is via `cabal install ...`, but we've all > been through the pain of non-sandboxed cabal usage already, and don't want > to recommend it. > * For downloading an installer that will be reused on multiple machines, > minimal installers are definitely preferable (in fact, I made a point of > drawing that out in my original PR). > > IME with new users - which granted may have selection bias - the vast > majority of people fall into category two, which is why I would still > recommend Stack over minimal installers as the primary link. Something > which may make more sense is to present Stack as a build tool, and then > recommend two ways of getting it ("raw" or "with GHC"). > > It should also be noted that on Windows, that are some definite advantages > to Stack over MinGHC around PATH management. Currently, to account for > cabal-install, MinGHC puts all tools (including MSYS2) on the PATH, whereas > Stack is able to work with just itself (since it modifies the PATH before > calling Cabal-the-library). > > Finally, I think the upgrade story for Stack is still a solid point in its > favor in all of this. > > Michael > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > > -- Chris Allen Currently working on http://haskellbook.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gershomb at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 15:38:31 2015 From: gershomb at gmail.com (Gershom B) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 11:38:31 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On September 24, 2015 at 11:37:08 AM, Christopher Allen (cma at bitemyapp.com) wrote: > > To be clear, my priority is that Platform get _off_ the downloads page for > now. We can discuss the order of the downloads page, but I think it will not be acceptable to remove the platform. ?gershom From michael at fpcomplete.com Thu Sep 24 15:45:20 2015 From: michael at fpcomplete.com (Michael Snoyman) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 18:45:20 +0300 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 6:38 PM, Gershom B wrote: > On September 24, 2015 at 11:37:08 AM, Christopher Allen (cma at bitemyapp.com) > wrote: > > > > To be clear, my priority is that Platform get _off_ the downloads page > for > > now. > > We can discuss the order of the downloads page, but I think it will not be > acceptable to remove the platform. > > > > I have to say Gershom, in a discussion that is otherwise full of logical justifications and well thought out reasonings, this comment comes off as out of character. Can you give a rationale of _why_ it won't be acceptable to remove the platform? Michael -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gershomb at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 15:49:43 2015 From: gershomb at gmail.com (Gershom B) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 11:49:43 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On September 24, 2015 at 11:45:51 AM, Michael Snoyman (michael at fpcomplete.com) wrote: > On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 6:38 PM, Gershom B wrote: > > > On September 24, 2015 at 11:37:08 AM, Christopher Allen (cma at bitemyapp.com) > > wrote: > > > > > > To be clear, my priority is that Platform get _off_ the downloads page > > for > > > now. > > > > We can discuss the order of the downloads page, but I think it will not be > > acceptable to remove the platform. > > > > > I have to say Gershom, in a discussion that is otherwise full of logical > justifications and well thought out reasonings, this comment comes off as > out of character. Can you give a rationale of _why_ it won't be acceptable > to remove the platform? I have to ask Michael, since we just had an extensive correspondence in which removing the platform was not once discussed, in order to come up with the draft proposal which John sent, and which was written with your input, do you now want to change your mind on the process which got us there? I mean, I?m happy to expand, but I honestly had thought we were on the same page there. The short story ? and there are many more reasons ? is that while beginners may go to the page to look for ?what first,? experienced users are accustomed to go there as well to look for the latest versions of things ? and many of them still want/prefer the platform. Students may also be directed by professors to download the platform, etc. So while we may want to say ?whatever is first should be optimized for the new user experience? (whatever that means) we must also bear in mind that the page is used by others as well, who are not new, and they may want the platform (whatever you personally think of it), and it would be a terrible shame if it were not easy for them to find it. ?Gershom From michael at fpcomplete.com Thu Sep 24 15:57:45 2015 From: michael at fpcomplete.com (Michael Snoyman) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 18:57:45 +0300 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 6:49 PM, Gershom B wrote: > On September 24, 2015 at 11:45:51 AM, Michael Snoyman ( > michael at fpcomplete.com) wrote: > > On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 6:38 PM, Gershom B wrote: > > > > > On September 24, 2015 at 11:37:08 AM, Christopher Allen ( > cma at bitemyapp.com) > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > To be clear, my priority is that Platform get _off_ the downloads > page > > > for > > > > now. > > > > > > We can discuss the order of the downloads page, but I think it will > not be > > > acceptable to remove the platform. > > > > > > > > I have to say Gershom, in a discussion that is otherwise full of logical > > justifications and well thought out reasonings, this comment comes off as > > out of character. Can you give a rationale of _why_ it won't be > acceptable > > to remove the platform? > > I have to ask Michael, since we just had an extensive correspondence in > which removing the platform was not once discussed, in order to come up > with the draft proposal which John sent, and which was written with your > input, do you now want to change your mind on the process which got us > there? > > I mean, I?m happy to expand, but I honestly had thought we were on the > same page there. > > The short story ? and there are many more reasons ? is that while > beginners may go to the page to look for ?what first,? experienced users > are accustomed to go there as well to look for the latest versions of > things ? and many of them still want/prefer the platform. Students may also > be directed by professors to download the platform, etc. > > So while we may want to say ?whatever is first should be optimized for the > new user experience? (whatever that means) we must also bear in mind that > the page is used by others as well, who are not new, and they may want the > platform (whatever you personally think of it), and it would be a terrible > shame if it were not easy for them to find it. > > ?Gershom > I'm content to let the platform be at the bottom of the page. I was just a little surprised to see you completely dismiss Chris's opinion without any form of explanation at all. Chris made a lot of very valid points, and you essentially shut him down with "no." I do respectfully disagree with your arguments here: I don't know of any experienced user who wants to specifically use the platform and wouldn't be able to find it without a link on the downloads page[1]. Furthermore, the line of reasoning of "someone may want it" means that we should also include about a dozen other download options on the page... Michael [1] http://lmgtfy.com/?q=haskell+platform -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gershomb at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 16:01:26 2015 From: gershomb at gmail.com (Gershom B) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 12:01:26 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On September 24, 2015 at 11:58:17 AM, Michael Snoyman (michael at fpcomplete.com) wrote: > > I do respectfully disagree with your arguments here: I don't know of any > experienced user who wants to specifically use the platform and wouldn't be > able to find it without a link on the downloads page[1]. Furthermore, the > line of reasoning of "someone may want it" means that we should also > include about a dozen other download options on the page? I have personally spoken with many many people who want to find that link on the downloads page. Certainly they _could_ google for it, but they are used to going to the homepage, and clicking download, and finding it. Certainly the haskell.org?homepage should be accessible to new users, but it genuinely does service others as well, and anything we do should bear that in mind. ?Gershom From johnw at newartisans.com Thu Sep 24 17:23:04 2015 From: johnw at newartisans.com (John Wiegley) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:23:04 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: (Michael Snoyman's message of "Thu, 24 Sep 2015 09:32:37 +0300") References: Message-ID: >>>>> Michael Snoyman writes: > Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads > page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even visit > this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation around > tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page says. I'd > like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." I haven't > heard anyone object to this idea before. I couldn't agree more, Michael. The new user is first in my mind with all of this. Perhaps we need a poll. So far the presented options are: 1. HP Stack Minimal 2. Stack HP Minimal 3. Stack Minimal HP 4. Minimal HP Stack 5. Minimal Stack HP I'll open voting at the current state, choosing #4. My reason is that HP and Stack will soon merge, and I'm willing to put Minimal first based on Christopher's and Gershom's arguments. Further, the reason HP is staying on the list for now is that I'd prefer not to conflate issues. I'm happy to start a new discussion, recommending to the committee that we remove HP, if others wish to. John From cma at bitemyapp.com Thu Sep 24 17:31:08 2015 From: cma at bitemyapp.com (Christopher Allen) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 12:31:08 -0500 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Given that: Most preferred -> Least preferred 3 5 2 4 1 >I'm happy to start a new discussion, recommending to the committee that we remove HP, if others wish to. Please do. On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 12:23 PM, John Wiegley wrote: > >>>>> Michael Snoyman writes: > > > Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads > > page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even > visit > > this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation around > > tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page says. > I'd > > like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." I > haven't > > heard anyone object to this idea before. > > I couldn't agree more, Michael. The new user is first in my mind with all > of > this. > > Perhaps we need a poll. So far the presented options are: > > 1. HP Stack Minimal > 2. Stack HP Minimal > 3. Stack Minimal HP > 4. Minimal HP Stack > 5. Minimal Stack HP > > I'll open voting at the current state, choosing #4. My reason is that HP > and > Stack will soon merge, and I'm willing to put Minimal first based on > Christopher's and Gershom's arguments. > > Further, the reason HP is staying on the list for now is that I'd prefer > not > to conflate issues. I'm happy to start a new discussion, recommending to > the > committee that we remove HP, if others wish to. > > John > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > -- Chris Allen Currently working on http://haskellbook.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From b at chreekat.net Thu Sep 24 17:38:27 2015 From: b at chreekat.net (Bryan Richter) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:38:27 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150924173827.GA19794@fuzzbomb> On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 12:01:26PM -0400, Gershom B wrote: > On September 24, 2015 at 11:58:17 AM, Michael Snoyman > (michael at fpcomplete.com) wrote: > > > > I do respectfully disagree with your arguments here: I don't know > > of any experienced user who wants to specifically use the platform > > and wouldn't be able to find it without a link on the downloads > > page[1]. Furthermore, the line of reasoning of "someone may want > > it" means that we should also include about a dozen other download > > options on the page? > > I have personally spoken with many many people who want to find that > link on the downloads page. Certainly they _could_ google for it, > but they are used to going to the homepage, and clicking download, > and finding it. I'll start with a caveat. Since I don't know anyone who likes or uses the HP, I think hearing their perspective would be valuable. What do they use it for? How do they avoid its problems? Do they recommend it to others, who also use it happily? Do they think it needs to change, or is it fine as-is? If there are existing discussions I missed because of coming into this late, please point me to them! I will present my opinion now, having presented that caveat. This opinion is subject to change if I hear the perspectives of HP proponents. I agree that having the HP on the downloads page is harmful, and I will even go so far as to question its very necessity. It seems to be geared towards letting people use GHC as a build tool. Although that is an old and storied paradigm, it's a broken one that serves no language especially well. Using a language should start at the build tool, not at the compiler. Whatever the HP represents should eventually be found in spirit in stack and cabal. The HP itself should not be on the Downloads page until it can fulfil its purpose without hamstringing its users. If ? as I suspect ? it can never manage such a feat, it should go away entirely, to be replaced by new features of stack and/or cabal. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 819 bytes Desc: Digital signature URL: From michael at fpcomplete.com Thu Sep 24 17:43:17 2015 From: michael at fpcomplete.com (Michael Snoyman) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 20:43:17 +0300 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 8:23 PM, John Wiegley wrote: > >>>>> Michael Snoyman writes: > > > Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads > > page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even > visit > > this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation around > > tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page says. > I'd > > like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." I > haven't > > heard anyone object to this idea before. > > I couldn't agree more, Michael. The new user is first in my mind with all > of > this. > > Perhaps we need a poll. So far the presented options are: > > 1. HP Stack Minimal > 2. Stack HP Minimal > 3. Stack Minimal HP > 4. Minimal HP Stack > 5. Minimal Stack HP > > I'll open voting at the current state, choosing #4. My reason is that HP > and > Stack will soon merge, and I'm willing to put Minimal first based on > Christopher's and Gershom's arguments. > > Further, the reason HP is staying on the list for now is that I'd prefer > not > to conflate issues. I'm happy to start a new discussion, recommending to > the > committee that we remove HP, if others wish to. > > John > 3 > 5 > 2 > 4 > 1 (checks next email) Huh, exact same as Chris ;) Michael -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gershomb at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 17:49:14 2015 From: gershomb at gmail.com (Gershom B) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 13:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: My vote is 4, followed by 5. ?Gershom On September 24, 2015 at 1:43:52 PM, Michael Snoyman (michael at fpcomplete.com) wrote: > On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 8:23 PM, John Wiegley wrote: > > > >>>>> Michael Snoyman writes: > > > > > Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads > > > page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even > > visit > > > this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation around > > > tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page says. > > I'd > > > like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." I > > haven't > > > heard anyone object to this idea before. > > > > I couldn't agree more, Michael. The new user is first in my mind with all > > of > > this. > > > > Perhaps we need a poll. So far the presented options are: > > > > 1. HP Stack Minimal > > 2. Stack HP Minimal > > 3. Stack Minimal HP > > 4. Minimal HP Stack > > 5. Minimal Stack HP > > > > I'll open voting at the current state, choosing #4. My reason is that HP > > and > > Stack will soon merge, and I'm willing to put Minimal first based on > > Christopher's and Gershom's arguments. > > > > Further, the reason HP is staying on the list for now is that I'd prefer > > not > > to conflate issues. I'm happy to start a new discussion, recommending to > > the > > committee that we remove HP, if others wish to. > > > > John > > > > 3 > 5 > 2 > 4 > 1 > > (checks next email) > > Huh, exact same as Chris ;) > > Michael > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > From eir at cis.upenn.edu Thu Sep 24 17:54:28 2015 From: eir at cis.upenn.edu (Richard Eisenberg) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 13:54:28 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: <20150924173827.GA19794@fuzzbomb> References: <20150924173827.GA19794@fuzzbomb> Message-ID: On Sep 24, 2015, at 1:38 PM, Bryan Richter wrote: > Since I don't know anyone who likes or uses > the HP, I think hearing their perspective would be valuable. At the threat of being booed out of the community, I'll stand up and say I like the HP. Of course it should improve -- and I like the direction it's going -- but I've used it as it is and would do so again. I think the observation that the HP promotes a ghc-centric view is why I like it. When working with a new language, I really do just want to think about the compiler. Only when I get around to trying to actually produce software do I care about a build tool. Starting with stack or cabal, instead of with ghc, means a much bigger cognitive load right away. Not only to you have Haskell files, but you also have .cabal files, and perhaps stack.yaml files. You have to think about directory structure -- both `cabal` and `stack` behave differently when they're run in or under a directory with project files than elsewhere. But, when I'm starting out, and when my students are starting out, I just want to think about the language. Compilers have, at their core, a simple interface: program text in, program binary out. Simple! It may be totally insufficient for producing portable libraries and distributable software, but I'm not tackling those issues on my first day. The fact that the HP means I can install something and right away tinker in GHCi and explore some common libraries is great. I'm not trying to derail the conversation. Or even to urge strongly that HP remain on the downloads page. I've not followed the thread closely enough to be able to make such a stand. But while scrolling through, I saw Bryan's request, and I thought I'd answer it. Happy booing! :) Richard From dagitj at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 18:04:27 2015 From: dagitj at gmail.com (Jason Dagit) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 11:04:27 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: <20150924173827.GA19794@fuzzbomb> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 10:54 AM, Richard Eisenberg wrote: > > On Sep 24, 2015, at 1:38 PM, Bryan Richter wrote: > > Since I don't know anyone who likes or uses > > the HP, I think hearing their perspective would be valuable. > > At the threat of being booed out of the community, I'll stand up and say I > like the HP. Of course it should improve -- and I like the direction it's > going -- but I've used it as it is and would do so again. > > I think the observation that the HP promotes a ghc-centric view is why I > like it. When working with a new language, I really do just want to think > about the compiler. Only when I get around to trying to actually produce > software do I care about a build tool. Starting with stack or cabal, > instead of with ghc, means a much bigger cognitive load right away. Not > only to you have Haskell files, but you also have .cabal files, and perhaps > stack.yaml files. You have to think about directory structure -- both > `cabal` and `stack` behave differently when they're run in or under a > directory with project files than elsewhere. > > But, when I'm starting out, and when my students are starting out, I just > want to think about the language. Compilers have, at their core, a simple > interface: program text in, program binary out. Simple! It may be totally > insufficient for producing portable libraries and distributable software, > but I'm not tackling those issues on my first day. The fact that the HP > means I can install something and right away tinker in GHCi and explore > some common libraries is great. > > I'm not trying to derail the conversation. Or even to urge strongly that > HP remain on the downloads page. I've not followed the thread closely > enough to be able to make such a stand. But while scrolling through, I saw > Bryan's request, and I thought I'd answer it. > > Happy booing! :) > > Richard > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mightybyte at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 18:15:30 2015 From: mightybyte at gmail.com (MightyByte) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 14:15:30 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 8:23 PM, John Wiegley wrote: > > Perhaps we need a poll. So far the presented options are: > > 1. HP Stack Minimal > 2. Stack HP Minimal > 3. Stack Minimal HP > 4. Minimal HP Stack > 5. Minimal Stack HP I vote for #4. From dagitj at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 18:15:46 2015 From: dagitj at gmail.com (Jason Dagit) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 11:15:46 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: <20150924173827.GA19794@fuzzbomb> Message-ID: [Sorry all about my previous email, I accidentally clicked "Send" before typing anything.] I don't personally get value from the HP, but my understanding is that universities do. In particular, I've heard stories of professors teaching Haskell courses and being able to ask their admin staff to "Install the Haskell Platform" on the lab machines and then they tailor the course materials to content in the HP. If the HP were to go away, I feel strongly that we should have a deprecation phase. Otherwise the users who do use it will feel like the rug was pulled out from under them. Let's not cause that sort of pain if we have the power to avoid it. I agree with Gershom that having a minimal installer is the right way to get going for professionals and hackers. I'm less in tune with beginners these days, but I think Gershom is basically right when he says the are a very diverse group and there isn't just one profile that fits the majority of them. On a personal side, I'm not sure what is entailed in giving objective info about stack vs. cabal. I'm probably OK with it for some definitions, but if it means giving stack equal status, then I feel that is a bit premature at this point. In particular, cabal has the advantage of being established, mature, and battle hardened. Stack, in my opinion, still needs time to prove itself. Both have flaws, both have advantages, but only cabal has a track record at the moment. Yes, I'm being conservative here, but I think that's reasonable if we're talking about making recommendations to such a wide audience. On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 10:54 AM, Richard Eisenberg wrote: > > On Sep 24, 2015, at 1:38 PM, Bryan Richter wrote: > > Since I don't know anyone who likes or uses > > the HP, I think hearing their perspective would be valuable. > > At the threat of being booed out of the community, I'll stand up and say I > like the HP. Of course it should improve -- and I like the direction it's > going -- but I've used it as it is and would do so again. > > I think the observation that the HP promotes a ghc-centric view is why I > like it. When working with a new language, I really do just want to think > about the compiler. Only when I get around to trying to actually produce > software do I care about a build tool. Starting with stack or cabal, > instead of with ghc, means a much bigger cognitive load right away. Not > only to you have Haskell files, but you also have .cabal files, and perhaps > stack.yaml files. You have to think about directory structure -- both > `cabal` and `stack` behave differently when they're run in or under a > directory with project files than elsewhere. > > But, when I'm starting out, and when my students are starting out, I just > want to think about the language. Compilers have, at their core, a simple > interface: program text in, program binary out. Simple! It may be totally > insufficient for producing portable libraries and distributable software, > but I'm not tackling those issues on my first day. The fact that the HP > means I can install something and right away tinker in GHCi and explore > some common libraries is great. > > I'm not trying to derail the conversation. Or even to urge strongly that > HP remain on the downloads page. I've not followed the thread closely > enough to be able to make such a stand. But while scrolling through, I saw > Bryan's request, and I thought I'd answer it. > > Happy booing! :) > > Richard > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eir at cis.upenn.edu Thu Sep 24 18:15:50 2015 From: eir at cis.upenn.edu (Richard Eisenberg) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 14:15:50 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'll vote for #4 from this list, looking forward to a time when HP and Stack are the same option. (At which point it might be better than Minimal.) On Sep 24, 2015, at 1:23 PM, John Wiegley wrote: >>>>>> Michael Snoyman writes: > >> Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads >> page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even visit >> this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation around >> tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page says. I'd >> like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." I haven't >> heard anyone object to this idea before. > > I couldn't agree more, Michael. The new user is first in my mind with all of > this. > > Perhaps we need a poll. So far the presented options are: > > 1. HP Stack Minimal > 2. Stack HP Minimal > 3. Stack Minimal HP > 4. Minimal HP Stack > 5. Minimal Stack HP > > I'll open voting at the current state, choosing #4. My reason is that HP and > Stack will soon merge, and I'm willing to put Minimal first based on > Christopher's and Gershom's arguments. > > Further, the reason HP is staying on the list for now is that I'd prefer not > to conflate issues. I'm happy to start a new discussion, recommending to the > committee that we remove HP, if others wish to. > > John > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community From ganesh at earth.li Thu Sep 24 19:22:43 2015 From: ganesh at earth.li (Ganesh Sittampalam) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 20:22:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm not too sure about the idea of voting directly - this seems like exactly what we have a committee for, to represent everyone rather than just the people who happen to be reading the right list at the right time. But anyway, if this is a poll of the whole list, I vote for #4. On Thu, 24 Sep 2015, John Wiegley wrote: >>>>>> Michael Snoyman writes: > >> Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads >> page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even visit >> this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation around >> tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page says. I'd >> like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." I haven't >> heard anyone object to this idea before. > > I couldn't agree more, Michael. The new user is first in my mind with all of > this. > > Perhaps we need a poll. So far the presented options are: > > 1. HP Stack Minimal > 2. Stack HP Minimal > 3. Stack Minimal HP > 4. Minimal HP Stack > 5. Minimal Stack HP > > I'll open voting at the current state, choosing #4. My reason is that HP and > Stack will soon merge, and I'm willing to put Minimal first based on > Christopher's and Gershom's arguments. > > Further, the reason HP is staying on the list for now is that I'd prefer not > to conflate issues. I'm happy to start a new discussion, recommending to the > committee that we remove HP, if others wish to. > > John > From m at tweag.io Thu Sep 24 19:22:53 2015 From: m at tweag.io (Boespflug, Mathieu) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 21:22:53 +0200 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi John, this is a nice summary of all options. May I suggest the following refinements to the summaries: " There are three widely used ways to install the Haskell toolchain on supported platforms. Currently these are: * Minimal installers: install just GHC (the compiler) in a global location on your system, using your system's package manager. (On Windows and OS X, also installs build tools.) * Stack: nothing is installed globally, except the stack command. Stack is a project-centric build tool that will automatically download and manage compiler and library versions locally on a project by project basis. * Haskell Platform: installs all of GHC (the compiler), cabal-install (a build tool), misc tools and a starter set of libraries in a global location on your system. If you opt for the minimal installer option for your platform, you'll likely still need to install one or more build tools (cabal-install or stack) separately. " The important point is that these options only differ in what gets installed globally, as opposed to (semantically speaking) locally-within-your-project (stack, cabal-install+sandboxes) or locally-within-your-homedir (cabal-install sans sandboxes). There ought be a paragraph somewhere near the top discussing upfront the tradeoffs, which include: * globally installed resources are conveniently and straightforwardly available to all users, and need only be downloaded once for all users. But, * globally installed resources are inflexible: it's hard to have multiple versions installed simultaneously, _because conflicts tend to arise_. This is particularly bad in the case of globally installed libraries. I think this paragraph should specifically mention the problems related to HP as it stands today. That paragraph can be removed once the HP no longer installs libraries globally. In my mind, it doesn't really matter what order things are in, from the moment that the main differentiators of each option are crisply and clearly defined. That said, the rationale behind the order above is: * minimal first, because that's what people normally expect (get the compiler, no bells and whistles). * HP last, because unless you're a student and the instructor specifically told you to download the HP, chances are you're going to run into trouble with this option (will change in the future, at which point we'll just have HP + minimal anyways). Any other order should work just as well. On 24 September 2015 at 07:20, John Wiegley wrote: > As mentioned earlier, I've been working on a draft version of the new Haskell > download page in consultation with Simon PJ, Michael Snoyman, and Gershom > Bazerman. The goal has been twofold: > > a) add stack as an explicit option, and > > b) add text to each option indicating clearly what it provides and where to > get further help, so users can understand the options and make an > informed choice. > > We've sought to keep the text factual, rather than imply that one option is > "best" for any particular class of user, since opinions vary so widely on this > point. > > At the following link, you'll find a draft version of the new page for > comment: > > https://gist.github.com/jwiegley/153d968ddfc9046ee4c9 > > Hopefully it can go live on haskell.org next week, so please contribute your > edits here, or by pull request. The goal is to explain each option so that > people can make an informed decision. > > However, the order of presentation does imply that whatever comes first is > "preferred" even if that is not the intent. The order currently given is HP, > Stack, Minimal. Chris has already made a few points about changing this order, > so let's continue that discussion and see where it leads us. > > Bear in mind that this is (hopefully) only an interim state. The plan is to > add Stack to the Platform, and render the Platform minimal, which will > consolidate this page down to a single, recommended download path. > > At the bottom of the gist are incomplete sections on third party libraries and > alternate installation approaches. These have yet to be written. The hope is > to resolve the top content first and sort the rest out after; however, ideas > for that content is most welcome too. > > Thank you, > John Wiegley > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community From acfoltzer at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 19:43:58 2015 From: acfoltzer at gmail.com (Adam Foltzer) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 14:43:58 -0500 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I am traveling/conferencing and cannot keep fully up to date with this conversation, but I'd like to appreciate the work of the folks contributing to this thread. I'm happy that the creation of this mailing list has opened up these processes to a broader audience. My preference here is option 4 for now, with the hope that the upcoming HP changes will render moot the split between these options. On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 2:22 PM, Boespflug, Mathieu wrote: > Hi John, > > this is a nice summary of all options. May I suggest the following > refinements to the summaries: > > " > There are three widely used ways to install the Haskell toolchain on > supported platforms. Currently these are: > > * Minimal installers: install just GHC (the compiler) in a global > location on your system, using your system's package manager. (On > Windows and OS X, also installs build tools.) > * Stack: nothing is installed globally, except the stack command. > Stack is a project-centric build tool that will automatically download > and manage compiler and library versions locally on a project by > project basis. > * Haskell Platform: installs all of GHC (the compiler), cabal-install > (a build tool), misc tools and a starter set of libraries in a global > location on your system. > > If you opt for the minimal installer option for your platform, you'll > likely still need to install one or more build tools (cabal-install or > stack) separately. > " > > The important point is that these options only differ in what gets > installed globally, as opposed to (semantically speaking) > locally-within-your-project (stack, cabal-install+sandboxes) or > locally-within-your-homedir (cabal-install sans sandboxes). There > ought be a paragraph somewhere near the top discussing upfront the > tradeoffs, which include: > > * globally installed resources are conveniently and straightforwardly > available to all users, and need only be downloaded once for all > users. But, > * globally installed resources are inflexible: it's hard to have > multiple versions installed simultaneously, _because conflicts tend to > arise_. This is particularly bad in the case of globally installed > libraries. > > I think this paragraph should specifically mention the problems > related to HP as it stands today. That paragraph can be removed once > the HP no longer installs libraries globally. > > In my mind, it doesn't really matter what order things are in, from > the moment that the main differentiators of each option are crisply > and clearly defined. That said, the rationale behind the order above > is: > > * minimal first, because that's what people normally expect (get the > compiler, no bells and whistles). > * HP last, because unless you're a student and the instructor > specifically told you to download the HP, chances are you're going to > run into trouble with this option (will change in the future, at which > point we'll just have HP + minimal anyways). > > Any other order should work just as well. > > > > On 24 September 2015 at 07:20, John Wiegley wrote: > > As mentioned earlier, I've been working on a draft version of the new > Haskell > > download page in consultation with Simon PJ, Michael Snoyman, and Gershom > > Bazerman. The goal has been twofold: > > > > a) add stack as an explicit option, and > > > > b) add text to each option indicating clearly what it provides and > where to > > get further help, so users can understand the options and make an > > informed choice. > > > > We've sought to keep the text factual, rather than imply that one option > is > > "best" for any particular class of user, since opinions vary so widely > on this > > point. > > > > At the following link, you'll find a draft version of the new page for > > comment: > > > > https://gist.github.com/jwiegley/153d968ddfc9046ee4c9 > > > > Hopefully it can go live on haskell.org next week, so please contribute > your > > edits here, or by pull request. The goal is to explain each option so > that > > people can make an informed decision. > > > > However, the order of presentation does imply that whatever comes first > is > > "preferred" even if that is not the intent. The order currently given is > HP, > > Stack, Minimal. Chris has already made a few points about changing this > order, > > so let's continue that discussion and see where it leads us. > > > > Bear in mind that this is (hopefully) only an interim state. The plan is > to > > add Stack to the Platform, and render the Platform minimal, which will > > consolidate this page down to a single, recommended download path. > > > > At the bottom of the gist are incomplete sections on third party > libraries and > > alternate installation approaches. These have yet to be written. The > hope is > > to resolve the top content first and sort the rest out after; however, > ideas > > for that content is most welcome too. > > > > Thank you, > > John Wiegley > > _______________________________________________ > > Haskell-community mailing list > > Haskell-community at haskell.org > > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From greghale at mit.edu Thu Sep 24 20:28:49 2015 From: greghale at mit.edu (Greg Hale) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 16:28:49 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Voting for option #4 for now, in order to give stack a longer test-of-time. Stack may evolve to be more universally adopted, or changes to cabal may alleviate the complaints about HP. It seems wise to see what happens and to limit the turn-over of preferred install options confronting new Haskellers. On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 3:43 PM, Adam Foltzer wrote: > I am traveling/conferencing and cannot keep fully up to date with this > conversation, but I'd like to appreciate the work of the folks contributing > to this thread. I'm happy that the creation of this mailing list has opened > up these processes to a broader audience. My preference here is option 4 > for now, with the hope that the upcoming HP changes will render moot the > split between these options. > > On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 2:22 PM, Boespflug, Mathieu wrote: > >> Hi John, >> >> this is a nice summary of all options. May I suggest the following >> refinements to the summaries: >> >> " >> There are three widely used ways to install the Haskell toolchain on >> supported platforms. Currently these are: >> >> * Minimal installers: install just GHC (the compiler) in a global >> location on your system, using your system's package manager. (On >> Windows and OS X, also installs build tools.) >> * Stack: nothing is installed globally, except the stack command. >> Stack is a project-centric build tool that will automatically download >> and manage compiler and library versions locally on a project by >> project basis. >> * Haskell Platform: installs all of GHC (the compiler), cabal-install >> (a build tool), misc tools and a starter set of libraries in a global >> location on your system. >> >> If you opt for the minimal installer option for your platform, you'll >> likely still need to install one or more build tools (cabal-install or >> stack) separately. >> " >> >> The important point is that these options only differ in what gets >> installed globally, as opposed to (semantically speaking) >> locally-within-your-project (stack, cabal-install+sandboxes) or >> locally-within-your-homedir (cabal-install sans sandboxes). There >> ought be a paragraph somewhere near the top discussing upfront the >> tradeoffs, which include: >> >> * globally installed resources are conveniently and straightforwardly >> available to all users, and need only be downloaded once for all >> users. But, >> * globally installed resources are inflexible: it's hard to have >> multiple versions installed simultaneously, _because conflicts tend to >> arise_. This is particularly bad in the case of globally installed >> libraries. >> >> I think this paragraph should specifically mention the problems >> related to HP as it stands today. That paragraph can be removed once >> the HP no longer installs libraries globally. >> >> In my mind, it doesn't really matter what order things are in, from >> the moment that the main differentiators of each option are crisply >> and clearly defined. That said, the rationale behind the order above >> is: >> >> * minimal first, because that's what people normally expect (get the >> compiler, no bells and whistles). >> * HP last, because unless you're a student and the instructor >> specifically told you to download the HP, chances are you're going to >> run into trouble with this option (will change in the future, at which >> point we'll just have HP + minimal anyways). >> >> Any other order should work just as well. >> >> >> >> On 24 September 2015 at 07:20, John Wiegley >> wrote: >> > As mentioned earlier, I've been working on a draft version of the new >> Haskell >> > download page in consultation with Simon PJ, Michael Snoyman, and >> Gershom >> > Bazerman. The goal has been twofold: >> > >> > a) add stack as an explicit option, and >> > >> > b) add text to each option indicating clearly what it provides and >> where to >> > get further help, so users can understand the options and make an >> > informed choice. >> > >> > We've sought to keep the text factual, rather than imply that one >> option is >> > "best" for any particular class of user, since opinions vary so widely >> on this >> > point. >> > >> > At the following link, you'll find a draft version of the new page for >> > comment: >> > >> > https://gist.github.com/jwiegley/153d968ddfc9046ee4c9 >> > >> > Hopefully it can go live on haskell.org next week, so please >> contribute your >> > edits here, or by pull request. The goal is to explain each option so >> that >> > people can make an informed decision. >> > >> > However, the order of presentation does imply that whatever comes first >> is >> > "preferred" even if that is not the intent. The order currently given >> is HP, >> > Stack, Minimal. Chris has already made a few points about changing this >> order, >> > so let's continue that discussion and see where it leads us. >> > >> > Bear in mind that this is (hopefully) only an interim state. The plan >> is to >> > add Stack to the Platform, and render the Platform minimal, which will >> > consolidate this page down to a single, recommended download path. >> > >> > At the bottom of the gist are incomplete sections on third party >> libraries and >> > alternate installation approaches. These have yet to be written. The >> hope is >> > to resolve the top content first and sort the rest out after; however, >> ideas >> > for that content is most welcome too. >> > >> > Thank you, >> > John Wiegley >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Haskell-community mailing list >> > Haskell-community at haskell.org >> > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >> _______________________________________________ >> Haskell-community mailing list >> Haskell-community at haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From simonpj at microsoft.com Thu Sep 24 20:35:13 2015 From: simonpj at microsoft.com (Simon Peyton Jones) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 20:35:13 +0000 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I like the way Mathieu sets things out here. Facts, and the factual consequences of choices, are very helpful. If they are clearly stated, order should be nigh irrelevant. Simon | -----Original Message----- | From: Haskell-community [mailto:haskell-community-bounces at haskell.org] On | Behalf Of Boespflug, Mathieu | Sent: 24 September 2015 20:23 | To: John Wiegley | Cc: haskell-community at haskell.org | Subject: Re: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org | download page | | Hi John, | | this is a nice summary of all options. May I suggest the following | refinements to the summaries: | | " | There are three widely used ways to install the Haskell toolchain on | supported platforms. Currently these are: | | * Minimal installers: install just GHC (the compiler) in a global | location on your system, using your system's package manager. (On | Windows and OS X, also installs build tools.) | * Stack: nothing is installed globally, except the stack command. | Stack is a project-centric build tool that will automatically download | and manage compiler and library versions locally on a project by | project basis. | * Haskell Platform: installs all of GHC (the compiler), cabal-install | (a build tool), misc tools and a starter set of libraries in a global | location on your system. | | If you opt for the minimal installer option for your platform, you'll | likely still need to install one or more build tools (cabal-install or | stack) separately. | " | | The important point is that these options only differ in what gets | installed globally, as opposed to (semantically speaking) | locally-within-your-project (stack, cabal-install+sandboxes) or | locally-within-your-homedir (cabal-install sans sandboxes). There | ought be a paragraph somewhere near the top discussing upfront the | tradeoffs, which include: | | * globally installed resources are conveniently and straightforwardly | available to all users, and need only be downloaded once for all | users. But, | * globally installed resources are inflexible: it's hard to have | multiple versions installed simultaneously, _because conflicts tend to | arise_. This is particularly bad in the case of globally installed | libraries. | | I think this paragraph should specifically mention the problems | related to HP as it stands today. That paragraph can be removed once | the HP no longer installs libraries globally. | | In my mind, it doesn't really matter what order things are in, from | the moment that the main differentiators of each option are crisply | and clearly defined. That said, the rationale behind the order above | is: | | * minimal first, because that's what people normally expect (get the | compiler, no bells and whistles). | * HP last, because unless you're a student and the instructor | specifically told you to download the HP, chances are you're going to | run into trouble with this option (will change in the future, at which | point we'll just have HP + minimal anyways). | | Any other order should work just as well. | | | | On 24 September 2015 at 07:20, John Wiegley wrote: | > As mentioned earlier, I've been working on a draft version of the new | Haskell | > download page in consultation with Simon PJ, Michael Snoyman, and | Gershom | > Bazerman. The goal has been twofold: | > | > a) add stack as an explicit option, and | > | > b) add text to each option indicating clearly what it provides and | where to | > get further help, so users can understand the options and make an | > informed choice. | > | > We've sought to keep the text factual, rather than imply that one option | is | > "best" for any particular class of user, since opinions vary so widely | on this | > point. | > | > At the following link, you'll find a draft version of the new page for | > comment: | > | > | https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3a%2f%2fgist.gith | ub.com%2fjwiegley%2f153d968ddfc9046ee4c9&data=01%7c01%7csimonpj%40064d.mgd | .microsoft.com%7ce2b4f37764aa4da0fb2e08d2c5158d65%7c72f988bf86f141af91ab2d | 7cd011db47%7c1&sdata=JdM8DNFObLLGfP6geYfw0rls7k%2fo5bScu4iwsyXi7jg%3d | > | > Hopefully it can go live on haskell.org next week, so please contribute | your | > edits here, or by pull request. The goal is to explain each option so | that | > people can make an informed decision. | > | > However, the order of presentation does imply that whatever comes first | is | > "preferred" even if that is not the intent. The order currently given is | HP, | > Stack, Minimal. Chris has already made a few points about changing this | order, | > so let's continue that discussion and see where it leads us. | > | > Bear in mind that this is (hopefully) only an interim state. The plan is | to | > add Stack to the Platform, and render the Platform minimal, which will | > consolidate this page down to a single, recommended download path. | > | > At the bottom of the gist are incomplete sections on third party | libraries and | > alternate installation approaches. These have yet to be written. The | hope is | > to resolve the top content first and sort the rest out after; however, | ideas | > for that content is most welcome too. | > | > Thank you, | > John Wiegley | > _______________________________________________ | > Haskell-community mailing list | > Haskell-community at haskell.org | > | https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3a%2f%2fmail.haske | ll.org%2fcgi-bin%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2fhaskell- | community&data=01%7c01%7csimonpj%40064d.mgd.microsoft.com%7ce2b4f37764aa4d | a0fb2e08d2c5158d65%7c72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7c1&sdata=vKqMvHNlOz | 0kwqdHxA16IWYj1VGU0MUpzvxm3kRu0Pg%3d | _______________________________________________ | Haskell-community mailing list | Haskell-community at haskell.org | https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3a%2f%2fmail.haske | ll.org%2fcgi-bin%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2fhaskell- | community&data=01%7c01%7csimonpj%40064d.mgd.microsoft.com%7ce2b4f37764aa4d | a0fb2e08d2c5158d65%7c72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7c1&sdata=vKqMvHNlOz | 0kwqdHxA16IWYj1VGU0MUpzvxm3kRu0Pg%3d From johnw at newartisans.com Fri Sep 25 00:30:38 2015 From: johnw at newartisans.com (John Wiegley) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 17:30:38 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: (Mathieu Boespflug's message of "Thu, 24 Sep 2015 21:22:53 +0200") References: Message-ID: >>>>> Boespflug, Mathieu writes: > this is a nice summary of all options. May I suggest the following > refinements to the summaries: Hi Mathieu, I like your enhancements, but I'm worried about it becoming *too* informative for new users. At a certain level of detail, it turns into a wall of text that no one reads. Like a lens, too little or too much focus is equally bad. Can we make the text at the top both pithy and communicative, without repeating details that are given in the click-through sections? We currently discuss "what you get" at the click-through. We haven't really presented "consequences", and I'm loathe to add yet another section, unless people here think otherwise. This is just the download page, after all. It's not meant to be an in-depth presentation of each option's pros and cons. Those capable of following such a discussion would probably not go to the download page to find it. John From ekmett at gmail.com Fri Sep 25 02:09:32 2015 From: ekmett at gmail.com (Edward Kmett) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 22:09:32 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Running through the thread up to this point my preferences would run to options 4 or 5. I'm almost equally split between the two, but both put the minimal installer at the top of the list addressing the bulk of the objections raised here, and avoid letting the platform scribble all over the global package database. The minimal install seems to "do the least harm" while ensuring that folks have an actual compiler in hand when they get done with our download page. The user is at a download page for Haskell, downloading and not getting a GHC install out of the box (stack first) seems to run contrary to the primary motivation for folks to come to the page. If it also bundled stack as well across all systems I think it'd address most of the concerns addressed by the 'stack only' option. To split hairs, I think while the linux installer for the minimal distribution doesn't include stack I lean slightly towards 5 over 4, and when and if we can fix it so that it does include stack then I'd lean towards 4 over 5. If in the future Ed Yang's "no-reinstall" cabal stuff gets into mainline, and/or stack gets incorporated into the platform, and the attendant issues get worked out in good faith by all parties, then the landscape could likely change considerably and the pros of putting the Haskell Platform at the top of the list may well outweigh the cons, but we're not yet in that world. -Edward On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 3:43 PM, Adam Foltzer wrote: > I am traveling/conferencing and cannot keep fully up to date with this > conversation, but I'd like to appreciate the work of the folks contributing > to this thread. I'm happy that the creation of this mailing list has opened > up these processes to a broader audience. My preference here is option 4 > for now, with the hope that the upcoming HP changes will render moot the > split between these options. > > On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 2:22 PM, Boespflug, Mathieu wrote: > >> Hi John, >> >> this is a nice summary of all options. May I suggest the following >> refinements to the summaries: >> >> " >> There are three widely used ways to install the Haskell toolchain on >> supported platforms. Currently these are: >> >> * Minimal installers: install just GHC (the compiler) in a global >> location on your system, using your system's package manager. (On >> Windows and OS X, also installs build tools.) >> * Stack: nothing is installed globally, except the stack command. >> Stack is a project-centric build tool that will automatically download >> and manage compiler and library versions locally on a project by >> project basis. >> * Haskell Platform: installs all of GHC (the compiler), cabal-install >> (a build tool), misc tools and a starter set of libraries in a global >> location on your system. >> >> If you opt for the minimal installer option for your platform, you'll >> likely still need to install one or more build tools (cabal-install or >> stack) separately. >> " >> >> The important point is that these options only differ in what gets >> installed globally, as opposed to (semantically speaking) >> locally-within-your-project (stack, cabal-install+sandboxes) or >> locally-within-your-homedir (cabal-install sans sandboxes). There >> ought be a paragraph somewhere near the top discussing upfront the >> tradeoffs, which include: >> >> * globally installed resources are conveniently and straightforwardly >> available to all users, and need only be downloaded once for all >> users. But, >> * globally installed resources are inflexible: it's hard to have >> multiple versions installed simultaneously, _because conflicts tend to >> arise_. This is particularly bad in the case of globally installed >> libraries. >> >> I think this paragraph should specifically mention the problems >> related to HP as it stands today. That paragraph can be removed once >> the HP no longer installs libraries globally. >> >> In my mind, it doesn't really matter what order things are in, from >> the moment that the main differentiators of each option are crisply >> and clearly defined. That said, the rationale behind the order above >> is: >> >> * minimal first, because that's what people normally expect (get the >> compiler, no bells and whistles). >> * HP last, because unless you're a student and the instructor >> specifically told you to download the HP, chances are you're going to >> run into trouble with this option (will change in the future, at which >> point we'll just have HP + minimal anyways). >> >> Any other order should work just as well. >> >> >> >> On 24 September 2015 at 07:20, John Wiegley >> wrote: >> > As mentioned earlier, I've been working on a draft version of the new >> Haskell >> > download page in consultation with Simon PJ, Michael Snoyman, and >> Gershom >> > Bazerman. The goal has been twofold: >> > >> > a) add stack as an explicit option, and >> > >> > b) add text to each option indicating clearly what it provides and >> where to >> > get further help, so users can understand the options and make an >> > informed choice. >> > >> > We've sought to keep the text factual, rather than imply that one >> option is >> > "best" for any particular class of user, since opinions vary so widely >> on this >> > point. >> > >> > At the following link, you'll find a draft version of the new page for >> > comment: >> > >> > https://gist.github.com/jwiegley/153d968ddfc9046ee4c9 >> > >> > Hopefully it can go live on haskell.org next week, so please >> contribute your >> > edits here, or by pull request. The goal is to explain each option so >> that >> > people can make an informed decision. >> > >> > However, the order of presentation does imply that whatever comes first >> is >> > "preferred" even if that is not the intent. The order currently given >> is HP, >> > Stack, Minimal. Chris has already made a few points about changing this >> order, >> > so let's continue that discussion and see where it leads us. >> > >> > Bear in mind that this is (hopefully) only an interim state. The plan >> is to >> > add Stack to the Platform, and render the Platform minimal, which will >> > consolidate this page down to a single, recommended download path. >> > >> > At the bottom of the gist are incomplete sections on third party >> libraries and >> > alternate installation approaches. These have yet to be written. The >> hope is >> > to resolve the top content first and sort the rest out after; however, >> ideas >> > for that content is most welcome too. >> > >> > Thank you, >> > John Wiegley >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Haskell-community mailing list >> > Haskell-community at haskell.org >> > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >> _______________________________________________ >> Haskell-community mailing list >> Haskell-community at haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From randyhaskell at outlook.com Fri Sep 25 03:00:16 2015 From: randyhaskell at outlook.com (Randy Polen) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 20:00:16 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: , , Message-ID: If "Minimal" means "MinGHC" and if MinGHC, on Windows installations, puts the MSys2 tools onto the user's PATH, which is harmful, then the Minimal will not be "doing the least harm" for some users. So, if my "ifs" above are correct, is it possible to change minGHC before using it as the "Minimal" to address the PATH issue? (Apologies if I am out of date on any of these questions implied by my "ifs", and thanks for any clarifications.) ---------------------------------------- > From: johnw at newartisans.com > To: michael at fpcomplete.com > Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:23:04 -0700 > CC: haskell-community at haskell.org > Subject: Re: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page > >>>>>> Michael Snoyman writes: > >> Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads >> page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even visit >> this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation around >> tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page says. I'd >> like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." I haven't >> heard anyone object to this idea before. > > I couldn't agree more, Michael. The new user is first in my mind with all of > this. > > Perhaps we need a poll. So far the presented options are: > > 1. HP Stack Minimal > 2. Stack HP Minimal > 3. Stack Minimal HP > 4. Minimal HP Stack > 5. Minimal Stack HP > > I'll open voting at the current state, choosing #4. My reason is that HP and > Stack will soon merge, and I'm willing to put Minimal first based on > Christopher's and Gershom's arguments. > > Further, the reason HP is staying on the list for now is that I'd prefer not > to conflate issues. I'm happy to start a new discussion, recommending to the > committee that we remove HP, if others wish to. > > John > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community From gershomb at gmail.com Fri Sep 25 03:06:51 2015 From: gershomb at gmail.com (Gershom B) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 23:06:51 -0400 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: My understanding is that minghc now provides a switcher script, and so does not stomp on a user?s path, but does require running a switcher before full access to the environment is provided. So that?s not an ideal situation, but certainly tolerable for the moment, and a marked improvement from the issues there before. ?gershom On September 24, 2015 at 11:00:19 PM, Randy Polen (randyhaskell at outlook.com) wrote: > If "Minimal" means "MinGHC" and if MinGHC, on Windows > installations, puts the MSys2 tools onto the user's PATH, which is > harmful, then the Minimal will not be "doing the least harm" for > some users. > > So, if my "ifs" above are correct, is it possible to change > minGHC before using it as the "Minimal" to address the PATH > issue? (Apologies if I am out of date on any of these questions > implied by my "ifs", and thanks for any clarifications.) > > ---------------------------------------- > > From: johnw at newartisans.com > > To: michael at fpcomplete.com > > Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:23:04 -0700 > > CC: haskell-community at haskell.org > > Subject: Re: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download > page > > > >>>>>> Michael Snoyman writes: > > > >> Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads > >> page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even visit > >> this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation around > >> tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page says. I'd > >> like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." I haven't > >> heard anyone object to this idea before. > > > > I couldn't agree more, Michael. The new user is first in my mind with all of > > this. > > > > Perhaps we need a poll. So far the presented options are: > > > > 1. HP Stack Minimal > > 2. Stack HP Minimal > > 3. Stack Minimal HP > > 4. Minimal HP Stack > > 5. Minimal Stack HP > > > > I'll open voting at the current state, choosing #4. My reason is that HP and > > Stack will soon merge, and I'm willing to put Minimal first based on > > Christopher's and Gershom's arguments. > > > > Further, the reason HP is staying on the list for now is that I'd prefer not > > to conflate issues. I'm happy to start a new discussion, recommending to the > > committee that we remove HP, if others wish to. > > > > John > > _______________________________________________ > > Haskell-community mailing list > > Haskell-community at haskell.org > > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > From handong05 at meituan.com Fri Sep 25 03:36:42 2015 From: handong05 at meituan.com (=?utf-8?B?6Z+p5Yas?=) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 11:36:42 +0800 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page Message-ID: <0B787E24-A6B6-47EC-B85A-7BA55A2BCD4E@meituan.com> As a newcomer(start learning about 3 months ago), I also will stand up and say i use the HP, i did meet some problems at the beginning, but the problems are all solved by reading documents and understanding more about ghc package management. Now i?m playing well with cabal sandbox and never had any problems. The main reason to use HP is that HP make ghci usable(i mean fire ghci anywhere, not cabal repl inside a project), otherwise i have to install lots of global packages by my self. Cabal and cabal-install do need some document care, but that?s all, global package doesn?t harm as long as you use sandbox. Finally, i?d say i really wish the minimal installer comes first with document link, that?s the right way to let newcomer understand how the ghc package management works and how to choose between stack/cabal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From michael at fpcomplete.com Fri Sep 25 05:41:31 2015 From: michael at fpcomplete.com (Michael Snoyman) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 08:41:31 +0300 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 8:23 PM, John Wiegley wrote: > >>>>> Michael Snoyman writes: > > > Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads > > page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even > visit > > this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation around > > tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page says. > I'd > > like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." I > haven't > > heard anyone object to this idea before. > > I couldn't agree more, Michael. The new user is first in my mind with all > of > this. > > Perhaps we need a poll. So far the presented options are: > > 1. HP Stack Minimal > 2. Stack HP Minimal > 3. Stack Minimal HP > 4. Minimal HP Stack > 5. Minimal Stack HP > > I'll open voting at the current state, choosing #4. My reason is that HP > and > Stack will soon merge, and I'm willing to put Minimal first based on > Christopher's and Gershom's arguments. > > Further, the reason HP is staying on the list for now is that I'd prefer > not > to conflate issues. I'm happy to start a new discussion, recommending to > the > committee that we remove HP, if others wish to. > > John > There was a lot of discussion on Twitter about this thread, but almost none of those participants wrote into this discussion. When I asked why[1], I got (at least[2]) two forms of response: 1. I don't want to sign up for another mailing list just to vote 2. Previous actions made it seem like the voting would be inconsequential to the outcome To try and lower the barrier to entry, I created a Google Form with the same questions as above: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1w2wKSxn5YN4LtSXYHvFT2IFw_BDaT_2cjUkP9pDeqLQ/viewform?usp=send_form I've avoided sending it to "obviously biased" sources, like the Stack mailing list itself. It has 21 responses so far (including one from me for "Stack Minimal HP", so please don't count my vote twice). Given the obvious sentiment around (2) mentioned above, I think it's important to pay attention to what people are saying outside of this mailing list. Michael [1] https://twitter.com/snoyberg/status/647243155734155266 [2] One person commented that "If they are arguing against you, they aren't going to take my opinion seriously...". That might imply a variant of (2) above. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From roma at ro-che.info Fri Sep 25 06:27:46 2015 From: roma at ro-che.info (Roman Cheplyaka) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 09:27:46 +0300 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5604E962.2010509@ro-che.info> On 09/24/2015 10:22 PM, Ganesh Sittampalam wrote: > I'm not too sure about the idea of voting directly - this seems like > exactly what we have a committee for, to represent everyone rather than > just the people who happen to be reading the right list at the right time. For the committee to represent everyone, shouldn't the committee be *elected* by everyone? With all due respect to the committee and the work they do, I don't remember voting for them. > But anyway, if this is a poll of the whole list, I vote for #4. I trust Michael's judgment; my vote goes to whatever he thinks is best. Roman -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 819 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: From ganesh at earth.li Fri Sep 25 06:47:31 2015 From: ganesh at earth.li (Ganesh Sittampalam) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 07:47:31 +0100 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: <5604E962.2010509@ro-che.info> References: <5604E962.2010509@ro-che.info> Message-ID: <5604EE03.4000800@earth.li> On 25/09/2015 07:27, Roman Cheplyaka wrote: > On 09/24/2015 10:22 PM, Ganesh Sittampalam wrote: >> I'm not too sure about the idea of voting directly - this seems like >> exactly what we have a committee for, to represent everyone rather than >> just the people who happen to be reading the right list at the right time. > > For the committee to represent everyone, shouldn't the committee be > *elected* by everyone? With all due respect to the committee and the > work they do, I don't remember voting for them. That does feel like something that should happen at some point, but it would be a fair amount of effort to organise. In the meantime AFAIK the committee does make an effort to select its own successors in a balanced/representative way and I think it's the best thing we've got at present. Ganesh From fa-ml at ariis.it Fri Sep 25 06:59:11 2015 From: fa-ml at ariis.it (Francesco Ariis) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 08:59:11 +0200 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20150925065911.GA2865@casa.casa> On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 08:41:31AM +0300, Michael Snoyman wrote: > There was a lot of discussion on Twitter about this thread, but almost none > of those participants wrote into this discussion. When I asked why[1], I > got (at least[2]) two forms of response: > > 1. I don't want to sign up for another mailing list just to vote > 2. Previous actions made it seem like the voting would be inconsequential > to the outcome > > To try and lower the barrier to entry, I created a Google Form with the > same questions as above: > > [...] Subscribing haskell-community is extremely useful and exciting! One can: 1. cast their vote on this particular issue 2. express their opinion in 'longhand' (which could be very useful towards reaching consensus) 3. get engaged with other persons (which could be useful for 2. or general "see what other people are thinking" benefit) 4. keep in touch with what the committee is discussing and contribute with his/her ideas even in the future A Google Form, as convenient as it is, doesn't allow/encourage 2., 3. and 4. (plus it seems to require a Google account, which I don't have). To the folks out there: join the fun! Haskell-community was created with this spirit in mind [1] (as this request for comments/votes show!) and subscribing to this mailing list is one way to contribute to the community we all love being part of. [1] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2015-September/121328.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 819 bytes Desc: Digital signature URL: From marlowsd at gmail.com Fri Sep 25 07:10:19 2015 From: marlowsd at gmail.com (Simon Marlow) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 08:10:19 +0100 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5604F35B.3070209@gmail.com> On 24/09/2015 18:23, John Wiegley wrote: >>>>>> Michael Snoyman writes: > >> Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads >> page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even visit >> this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation around >> tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page says. I'd >> like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." I haven't >> heard anyone object to this idea before. > > I couldn't agree more, Michael. The new user is first in my mind with all of > this. > > Perhaps we need a poll. So far the presented options are: > > 1. HP Stack Minimal > 2. Stack HP Minimal > 3. Stack Minimal HP > 4. Minimal HP Stack > 5. Minimal Stack HP > > I'll open voting at the current state, choosing #4. My reason is that HP and > Stack will soon merge, and I'm willing to put Minimal first based on > Christopher's and Gershom's arguments. > > Further, the reason HP is staying on the list for now is that I'd prefer not > to conflate issues. I'm happy to start a new discussion, recommending to the > committee that we remove HP, if others wish to. I think it would be strange to download and install Haskell from the download page and then not be able to type "ghci" and get a prompt, or use ghc to compile some code. I appreciate that there are now a lot of users and use cases that just don't use Haskell this way, but there are also a lot who do. We won't be able to figure out the relative size of these two groups easily, and I suspect a vote/poll is likely to give misleading results. But since there are few downsides to the minimal installer for those who want to use Stack, that seems like the best overall choice. Hence, #4/#5 for me equally. Ideally the Linux minimal installer would include Stack too, for consistency and so that we don't have to have the explicit special-case text on the download page. Cheers Simon From ganesh at earth.li Fri Sep 25 07:13:22 2015 From: ganesh at earth.li (Ganesh Sittampalam) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 08:13:22 +0100 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5604F412.9050200@earth.li> On 25/09/2015 06:41, Michael Snoyman wrote: > Given the obvious sentiment around (2) mentioned above, I think it's > important to pay attention to what people are saying outside of this > mailing list. This is exactly why I think committee at haskell.org should decide on this for itself (after listening to all constituencies), rather than relying on polls with rather confused electorates. For FTP it was worth making a serious effort to poll the whole community. This is only a short-term decision about something relatively minor and isn't worth that kind of undertaking. Ganesh From k-bx at k-bx.com Fri Sep 25 07:15:47 2015 From: k-bx at k-bx.com (Kostiantyn Rybnikov) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 10:15:47 +0300 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: <5604F35B.3070209@gmail.com> References: <5604F35B.3070209@gmail.com> Message-ID: Exactly my thoughts. With all the love I have for Stack, if you want to just run ghc(i), you wouldn't be able to do so after installing stack. You'd need to: 1. run `stack setup` 2. edit your PATH to point wherever ghc(i) is installed And these aren't even clear out of current instructions for a newbie. So, for me, ideal option would be: Minimal which always provides stack (and recommends it for managing projects). Before that happens, I voted for "stack minimal HP" way, because it's better to learn how stack works than to fall into "I don't have stack, I don't want to waste my time on it, let's just use everything global" way. On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 10:10 AM, Simon Marlow wrote: > On 24/09/2015 18:23, John Wiegley wrote: > >> Michael Snoyman writes: >>>>>>> >>>>>> >> Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads >>> page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even >>> visit >>> this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation around >>> tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page says. >>> I'd >>> like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." I >>> haven't >>> heard anyone object to this idea before. >>> >> >> I couldn't agree more, Michael. The new user is first in my mind with all >> of >> this. >> >> Perhaps we need a poll. So far the presented options are: >> >> 1. HP Stack Minimal >> 2. Stack HP Minimal >> 3. Stack Minimal HP >> 4. Minimal HP Stack >> 5. Minimal Stack HP >> >> I'll open voting at the current state, choosing #4. My reason is that HP >> and >> Stack will soon merge, and I'm willing to put Minimal first based on >> Christopher's and Gershom's arguments. >> >> Further, the reason HP is staying on the list for now is that I'd prefer >> not >> to conflate issues. I'm happy to start a new discussion, recommending to >> the >> committee that we remove HP, if others wish to. >> > > I think it would be strange to download and install Haskell from the > download page and then not be able to type "ghci" and get a prompt, or use > ghc to compile some code. I appreciate that there are now a lot of users > and use cases that just don't use Haskell this way, but there are also a > lot who do. We won't be able to figure out the relative size of these two > groups easily, and I suspect a vote/poll is likely to give misleading > results. But since there are few downsides to the minimal installer for > those who want to use Stack, that seems like the best overall choice. > > Hence, #4/#5 for me equally. > > Ideally the Linux minimal installer would include Stack too, for > consistency and so that we don't have to have the explicit special-case > text on the download page. > > Cheers > Simon > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From simonpj at microsoft.com Fri Sep 25 07:54:11 2015 From: simonpj at microsoft.com (Simon Peyton Jones) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 07:54:11 +0000 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <67d6872004f840cfb4f6d74005fc7ef1@DB4PR30MB030.064d.mgd.msft.net> Friends I?m a little worried at how many cycles we might burn to determine the order of three items in a list, when ? hopefully it?ll become largely irrelevant when we get the new HP (months not years) ? if the consequences of choices are clearly articulated, the order is not very important I know that high-contributing members of our community have differing, strongly held views; and that these differences are not mere whims but are based on a thoughtful judgements. If we can?t come to a common view (and we should not take that as failure ? professional judgements often differ), perhaps the two points suggest a path to a holding position we can all live with? (John: that might mean that the download page has more info than you?d really like, but I think that?s a lesser evil. In any case, as a possibly-weird user, I think that most download pages are dismayingly short of information.) Simon From: Haskell-community [mailto:haskell-community-bounces at haskell.org] On Behalf Of Michael Snoyman Sent: 25 September 2015 06:42 To: John Wiegley Cc: haskell-community at haskell.org Subject: Re: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 8:23 PM, John Wiegley > wrote: >>>>> Michael Snoyman > writes: > Secondly, I'd like to make clear what I think the goal for the downloads > page should be: new users. Experienced Haskellers are unlikely to even visit > this downloads page, and are likely well aware of the situation around > tooling to make an informed decision regardless of what this page says. I'd > like us to constrain discussion to "what's best for a new user." I haven't > heard anyone object to this idea before. I couldn't agree more, Michael. The new user is first in my mind with all of this. Perhaps we need a poll. So far the presented options are: 1. HP Stack Minimal 2. Stack HP Minimal 3. Stack Minimal HP 4. Minimal HP Stack 5. Minimal Stack HP I'll open voting at the current state, choosing #4. My reason is that HP and Stack will soon merge, and I'm willing to put Minimal first based on Christopher's and Gershom's arguments. Further, the reason HP is staying on the list for now is that I'd prefer not to conflate issues. I'm happy to start a new discussion, recommending to the committee that we remove HP, if others wish to. John There was a lot of discussion on Twitter about this thread, but almost none of those participants wrote into this discussion. When I asked why[1], I got (at least[2]) two forms of response: 1. I don't want to sign up for another mailing list just to vote 2. Previous actions made it seem like the voting would be inconsequential to the outcome To try and lower the barrier to entry, I created a Google Form with the same questions as above: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1w2wKSxn5YN4LtSXYHvFT2IFw_BDaT_2cjUkP9pDeqLQ/viewform?usp=send_form I've avoided sending it to "obviously biased" sources, like the Stack mailing list itself. It has 21 responses so far (including one from me for "Stack Minimal HP", so please don't count my vote twice). Given the obvious sentiment around (2) mentioned above, I think it's important to pay attention to what people are saying outside of this mailing list. Michael [1] https://twitter.com/snoyberg/status/647243155734155266 [2] One person commented that "If they are arguing against you, they aren't going to take my opinion seriously...". That might imply a variant of (2) above. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From m at tweag.io Fri Sep 25 09:05:38 2015 From: m at tweag.io (Boespflug, Mathieu) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 11:05:38 +0200 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi John, agreed, overdoing the downloads page is certainly a risk. And the added text does cover ground that is expanded on in the click-through sections. My concern is that as things stand, I find it unlikely that a new user will grok the subtleties of going for one option rather than the other. Summarizing the trade-offs (which I think by this point no one is disputing) right at the top should help the user _understand how to weigh his/her options_. I think it's not a problem if some info ends up being repeated: few users will be reading the entire Downloads page top-to-bottom (already 5.5 screen-fulls over here!). Without the tradeoffs explained pithily at the top, as as new user, I go the downloads page and I see that e.g. HP gives me plenty that I probably want. Sounds good to me! :) The page tells me that Stack gives me "the capacity to download and install" the same thing too, rather than that happening out-of-the-box. That doesn't sound very compelling. Why wouldn't I want everything just there from the get-go? Turns out there are good reasons why at this point you probably _don't_ want to be using the HP if you want to hack on multiple projects at once, reason being simply that HP assumes all projects can make do with a shared instance of the exact same versions of the libraries and tools that it ships with, when this assumption does not hold true in practice (again, in the future this may change). On 25 September 2015 at 02:30, John Wiegley wrote: >>>>>> Boespflug, Mathieu writes: > >> this is a nice summary of all options. May I suggest the following >> refinements to the summaries: > > Hi Mathieu, > > I like your enhancements, but I'm worried about it becoming *too* informative > for new users. At a certain level of detail, it turns into a wall of text that > no one reads. Like a lens, too little or too much focus is equally bad. > > Can we make the text at the top both pithy and communicative, without > repeating details that are given in the click-through sections? We currently > discuss "what you get" at the click-through. We haven't really presented > "consequences", and I'm loathe to add yet another section, unless people here > think otherwise. > > This is just the download page, after all. It's not meant to be an in-depth > presentation of each option's pros and cons. Those capable of following such a > discussion would probably not go to the download page to find it. > > John From johnw at newartisans.com Fri Sep 25 18:25:30 2015 From: johnw at newartisans.com (John Wiegley) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 11:25:30 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: (Michael Snoyman's message of "Fri, 25 Sep 2015 08:41:31 +0300") References: Message-ID: >>>>> Michael Snoyman writes: > There was a lot of discussion on Twitter about this thread, but almost none > of those participants wrote into this discussion. When I asked why[1], I got > (at least[2]) two forms of response: > > 1. I don't want to sign up for another mailing list just to vote I've been there before. > 2. Previous actions made it seem like the voting would be inconsequential to > the outcome This is most unfortunate. The voting certainly matters, since I'm looking for community feedback to finalize the edits. > To try and lower the barrier to entry, I created a Google Form with the same > questions as above: > https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1w2wKSxn5YN4LtSXYHvFT2IFw_BDaT_2cjUkP9pDeqLQ/viewform?usp=send_form Thanks for this additional data. I've counted the most votes on the ML for #4. Several of those voting for #4 also voted for #5. The Google Form seems to strongly prefer #3 and #5. So let's drop this down to the three main choices: (A) Stack Minimal HP (B) Minimal HP Stack (C) Minimal Stack HP (A) has a very strong showing on the Google Form, but not on the ML. The arguments I've collected right now for not preferring (A) are: - Stack hasn't proven itself over time yet, the way cabal has. - Stack doesn't actually download a Haskell compiler. - Stack does not make using "ghci" easy. As for whether HP should be first or not (B or C), I don't have strong feelings, since we *are* going to merge the two options. I'd like to open a second round of voting now on these three options, unless someone wishes to make a case for those that were dropped. > Given the obvious sentiment around (2) mentioned above, I think it's > important to pay attention to what people are saying outside of this mailing > list. If you know of discussions happening elsewhere (SO, reddit, Google+, etc), please let me know, since I don't follow those communities. I only happened upon your Twitter discussion because Gabriel retweeted it. John From johnw at newartisans.com Fri Sep 25 17:53:27 2015 From: johnw at newartisans.com (John Wiegley) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2015 10:53:27 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: (Mathieu Boespflug's message of "Fri, 25 Sep 2015 11:05:38 +0200") References: Message-ID: >>>>> Boespflug, Mathieu writes: > Without the tradeoffs explained pithily at the top, as as new user, I go the > downloads page and I see that e.g. HP gives me plenty that I probably want. > Sounds good to me! :) The page tells me that Stack gives me "the capacity to > download and install" the same thing too, rather than that happening > out-of-the-box. That doesn't sound very compelling. Why wouldn't I want > everything just there from the get-go? Turns out there are good reasons why > at this point you probably _don't_ want to be using the HP if you want to > hack on multiple projects at once, reason being simply that HP assumes all > projects can make do with a shared instance of the exact same versions of > the libraries and tools that it ships with, when this assumption does not > hold true in practice (again, in the future this may change). Ok, you and Simon have a good point, we need more readily visible guidance on choice selection. I'll try to incorporate your changes as briefly as I can. John From michael at fpcomplete.com Sat Sep 26 18:05:09 2015 From: michael at fpcomplete.com (Michael Snoyman) Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2015 21:05:09 +0300 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 9:25 PM, John Wiegley wrote: > >>>>> Michael Snoyman writes: > > > There was a lot of discussion on Twitter about this thread, but almost > none > > of those participants wrote into this discussion. When I asked why[1], I > got > > (at least[2]) two forms of response: > > > > 1. I don't want to sign up for another mailing list just to vote > > I've been there before. > > > 2. Previous actions made it seem like the voting would be > inconsequential to > > the outcome > > This is most unfortunate. The voting certainly matters, since I'm looking > for > community feedback to finalize the edits. > > > To try and lower the barrier to entry, I created a Google Form with the > same > > questions as above: > > > > https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1w2wKSxn5YN4LtSXYHvFT2IFw_BDaT_2cjUkP9pDeqLQ/viewform?usp=send_form > > Thanks for this additional data. > > I've counted the most votes on the ML for #4. Several of those voting for > #4 > also voted for #5. The Google Form seems to strongly prefer #3 and #5. So > let's drop this down to the three main choices: > > (A) Stack Minimal HP > (B) Minimal HP Stack > (C) Minimal Stack HP > > (A) has a very strong showing on the Google Form, but not on the ML. The > arguments I've collected right now for not preferring (A) are: > > - Stack hasn't proven itself over time yet, the way cabal has. > - Stack doesn't actually download a Haskell compiler. > - Stack does not make using "ghci" easy. > > As for whether HP should be first or not (B or C), I don't have strong > feelings, since we *are* going to merge the two options. > > I'd like to open a second round of voting now on these three options, > unless > someone wishes to make a case for those that were dropped. > > > Given the obvious sentiment around (2) mentioned above, I think it's > > important to pay attention to what people are saying outside of this > mailing > > list. > > If you know of discussions happening elsewhere (SO, reddit, Google+, etc), > please let me know, since I don't follow those communities. I only happened > upon your Twitter discussion because Gabriel retweeted it. > > John > I don't think another round of voting is necessary, and I think asking for it is a clear message of not listening to people who voted the first time. I'm also cognizant of Simon's comments about spending too much time on this, which frankly I've already far overextended on. This response is probably going to get a bit meander-y, but I want to make sure we're on the same page about things. The point has been raised multiple times that - in the future - Stack and HP will really be the same option. I actually have a very different read on the situation: today, Stack and *minimal installers* are the same option. I would never have categorized them as being two separate choices, but as really being the same choice with a few distinguishing characteristics: * Stack: easily download multiple versions of GHC, easier upgrade path, doesn't add a lot of binaries to your PATH. Allow easily downloading and building all additional tools (alex, happy, cabal-install, etc) * Minimal installers: provide Stack, alex, happy, cabal-install, and GHC out of the box. Preferable if: you don't want a build tool downloading your compiler, you'll be reusing the downloaded file on multiple machines, you want to use cabal-install instead of Stack, or you want to make sure you have GHC and friends on the PATH. My proposal - which is very much in line with the voting results - would be to make this section first, and the Haskell Platform section second. I'm not sure if opening this can of worms now is a good idea or not, but I'll ask it: I don't understand what the future vision is for the Haskell Platform relative to the minimal installers. As I see it, in the future the Haskell Platform will be indistinguishable from today's MinGHC/GHC for Mac OS X, with the possible addition of some global constraint file that is still too ill-defined for me to be certain what it's going to do[1]. Richard: your concern seems to be having a GHC available on the path that students can use today. Where do the minimal installers fall short on this? The big area I see where that will happen is that HP includes more packages in the global database. But that's exactly the aspect of HP which is planned to change in the next release, meaning the advantage you're going for is going to disappear anyway. I realize I've muddled many things together here (and perhaps a separate "future of HP" thread is in order), but I've just been getting more confused reading the various responses. So to sum up, here's what I'd really see as the future of the downloads page: * Links provided for a minimal installer and Stack itself * I picture that at some point, instead of having HP and MinGHC/GHC for Mac OS X, we'll just have one option. I don't care what that option is called, so may as well call it HP * Explanation along the lines I gave above about difference between Stack and minimal installer, possibly also about difference between Stack and cabal-install (I'd focus on curation vs dependency solving, even though that's not technically the primary difference between the two) * Including "getting started" style guides for using each tool. The Stack guide could work for both Stack itself and the minimal installer, and in the future a link to a cabal-install guide could be provided as well With this approach, I think we can give very concrete advice to new users, collapse the download options down significantly, and streamline the community efforts on installers substantially. In the short term: we keep a link to the HP at the bottom of the page, explaining that it ships with more packages than minimal installers, and that in some cases it can be difficult to upgrade those packages. As a side note, this is not terribly different from what I proposed originally in my pull request[2]. Michael [1] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/cabal-devel/2015-September/010247.html [2] https://github.com/haskell-infra/hl/pull/130 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnw at newartisans.com Sat Sep 26 18:59:53 2015 From: johnw at newartisans.com (John Wiegley) Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2015 11:59:53 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: (Michael Snoyman's message of "Sat, 26 Sep 2015 21:05:09 +0300") References: Message-ID: >>>>> Michael Snoyman writes: > With this approach, I think we can give very concrete advice to new users, > collapse the download options down significantly, and streamline the > community efforts on installers substantially. In the short term: we keep a > link to the HP at the bottom of the page, explaining that it ships with more > packages than minimal installers, and that in some cases it can be difficult > to upgrade those packages. > As a side note, this is not terribly different from what I proposed > originally in my pull request[2]. I think that in the interests of time, I'm going to close this discussion now (thanks for all who sent second round votes by e-mail), and will go with the following order, to be published by Monday: Minimal, Stack, HP We can open follow-on discussions after that to tweak the page with whatever clarifications or simplifications we feel are necessary. The only remaining edits to be applied are the clarifications from Mathieu, and to finish out the bottom of the page (the third-party stuff). John From johnw at newartisans.com Sat Sep 26 19:51:22 2015 From: johnw at newartisans.com (John Wiegley) Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2015 12:51:22 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: (John Wiegley's message of "Sat, 26 Sep 2015 11:59:53 -0700") References: Message-ID: >>>>> John Wiegley writes: > We can open follow-on discussions after that to tweak the page with whatever > clarifications or simplifications we feel are necessary. The only remaining > edits to be applied are the clarifications from Mathieu, and to finish out > the bottom of the page (the third-party stuff). I did forget to mention: Thanks to everyone who participated in this marathon! It was clear there was no one choice that suited everyone's fancy, but at least we arrived at a way to inch forward to the next step. John From michael at fpcomplete.com Sat Sep 26 20:03:08 2015 From: michael at fpcomplete.com (Michael Snoyman) Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2015 23:03:08 +0300 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Sep 26, 2015 at 10:51 PM, John Wiegley wrote: > >>>>> John Wiegley writes: > > > We can open follow-on discussions after that to tweak the page with > whatever > > clarifications or simplifications we feel are necessary. The only > remaining > > edits to be applied are the clarifications from Mathieu, and to finish > out > > the bottom of the page (the third-party stuff). > > I did forget to mention: Thanks to everyone who participated in this > marathon! > It was clear there was no one choice that suited everyone's fancy, but at > least we arrived at a way to inch forward to the next step. > > John > I said it privately, but it's deserved publicly: thank you very much John, I know you're putting a lot of effort into making the best decisions possible here. I agree with your call on this for now, and will continue the discussion when I have something to add in the (probably near) future. Michael -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From simonpj at microsoft.com Mon Sep 28 07:59:44 2015 From: simonpj at microsoft.com (Simon Peyton Jones) Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2015 07:59:44 +0000 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <39c27f3cad5d40269e3850abbca7d27b@DB4PR30MB030.064d.mgd.msft.net> I said it privately, but it's deserved publicly: thank you very much John, I know you're putting a lot of effort into making the best decisions possible here. I agree with your call on this for now, and will continue the discussion when I have something to add in the (probably near) future. Yes, thank you John! There are lots of considerations here, for different classes of users and purposes, and it?s been extremely helpful to have you chair the discussion and bring it to a conclusion. I think the debate will also provide helpful guidance for what we want the new HP to do, to make the new story simpler to tell than the current one. Anyway, thank you. Simon From: Haskell-community [mailto:haskell-community-bounces at haskell.org] On Behalf Of Michael Snoyman Sent: 26 September 2015 21:03 To: John Wiegley Cc: haskell-community at haskell.org Subject: Re: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page On Sat, Sep 26, 2015 at 10:51 PM, John Wiegley > wrote: >>>>> John Wiegley > writes: > We can open follow-on discussions after that to tweak the page with whatever > clarifications or simplifications we feel are necessary. The only remaining > edits to be applied are the clarifications from Mathieu, and to finish out > the bottom of the page (the third-party stuff). I did forget to mention: Thanks to everyone who participated in this marathon! It was clear there was no one choice that suited everyone's fancy, but at least we arrived at a way to inch forward to the next step. John I said it privately, but it's deserved publicly: thank you very much John, I know you're putting a lot of effort into making the best decisions possible here. I agree with your call on this for now, and will continue the discussion when I have something to add in the (probably near) future. Michael -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cma at bitemyapp.com Mon Sep 28 18:10:20 2015 From: cma at bitemyapp.com (Christopher Allen) Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2015 13:10:20 -0500 Subject: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page In-Reply-To: <39c27f3cad5d40269e3850abbca7d27b@DB4PR30MB030.064d.mgd.msft.net> References: <39c27f3cad5d40269e3850abbca7d27b@DB4PR30MB030.064d.mgd.msft.net> Message-ID: I'm pleased with and encouraged by the conversation that was had. Thank you John, looking forward to collaborating with you more in the future :) On Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 2:59 AM, Simon Peyton Jones wrote: > I said it privately, but it's deserved publicly: thank you very much John, > I know you're putting a lot of effort into making the best decisions > possible here. I agree with your call on this for now, and will continue > the discussion when I have something to add in the (probably near) future. > > Yes, thank you John! There are lots of considerations here, for different > classes of users and purposes, and it?s been extremely helpful to have you > chair the discussion and bring it to a conclusion. > > > > I think the debate will also provide helpful guidance for what we want the > new HP to do, to make the new story simpler to tell than the current one. > > > > Anyway, thank you. > > > > Simon > > > > *From:* Haskell-community [mailto:haskell-community-bounces at haskell.org] *On > Behalf Of *Michael Snoyman > *Sent:* 26 September 2015 21:03 > *To:* John Wiegley > *Cc:* haskell-community at haskell.org > *Subject:* Re: [Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org > download page > > > > > > > > On Sat, Sep 26, 2015 at 10:51 PM, John Wiegley > wrote: > > >>>>> John Wiegley writes: > > > We can open follow-on discussions after that to tweak the page with > whatever > > clarifications or simplifications we feel are necessary. The only > remaining > > edits to be applied are the clarifications from Mathieu, and to finish > out > > the bottom of the page (the third-party stuff). > > I did forget to mention: Thanks to everyone who participated in this > marathon! > It was clear there was no one choice that suited everyone's fancy, but at > least we arrived at a way to inch forward to the next step. > > John > > > > I said it privately, but it's deserved publicly: thank you very much John, > I know you're putting a lot of effort into making the best decisions > possible here. I agree with your call on this for now, and will continue > the discussion when I have something to add in the (probably near) future. > > Michael > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-community mailing list > Haskell-community at haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-community > > -- Chris Allen Currently working on http://haskellbook.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnw at newartisans.com Mon Sep 28 21:33:24 2015 From: johnw at newartisans.com (John Wiegley) Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2015 14:33:24 -0700 Subject: [Haskell-community] Inviting others to join us on -community References: <39c27f3cad5d40269e3850abbca7d27b@DB4PR30MB030.064d.mgd.msft.net> Message-ID: >>>>> Christopher Allen writes: > I'm pleased with and encouraged by the conversation that was had. Thank you > John, looking forward to collaborating with you more in the future : ) Thank you, Christopher, Michael, Simon, Gershom, and everyone else who participated these past weeks. I'm also happy with the progress we made -- but especially with how we made it. The technical details have unfolded at a maddeningly slow rate, but we made significant progress at broadening the field of collaboration between several principle contributors in the community. We (the committee) are going to continue this process in the future: of using -community to discuss issues on a broader scale, with myself continuing to act as a sort of "secretary" to ensure that the community-wide discussion is heard by the committee and recorded, and nothing is ignored. Whatever issues people have to discuss, feel free to bring them up here! and invite others to do so who have any ideas or knowledge to contribute. John