[Haskell-cafe] RFC: removing “alternative installation methods” from haskell.org (or finding them owners)

[Keith]

>However, I'm a bit puzzled by the experience of your students.  The
>Downloads page[1] already contains a link to ghcup which is a
>one-click installer (or rather a one-click-to-paste-into-the-terminal
>installer) for the popular architectures.  It should work as well on
>Windows and Mac as it does on Linux.

Sad to say, but even among computer science students there is a world of difference between a '1 click' installer and one line of shell code to run.

Sent from my phone with K-9 Mail.

On 4 April 2022 13:28:56 UTC, Tom Ellis <tom-lists-haskell-cafe-2017 at jaguarpaw.co.uk> wrote:
>On Mon, Apr 04, 2022 at 10:03:11AM +0100, Julian Bradfield wrote:
>> On 2022-04-03, MigMit <migmit at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I think I remember myself as an inexperienced user. I might've
>> > walked away from Haskell, if I was given an instruction like "to
>> > install thing X, first install thing A, then use it to install
>> > think K, and then use that to install thing X". The longer the way
>> > between becoming curious about something and actually producing an
>> > executable, the less new users you have.
>> 
>> We use Haskell in our first-year course. Almost all students turn up
>> with bog-standard commodity hardware: Windows laptops, Macs, or
>> Chromebooks, with a small proportion of Linux laptops (those people
>> are usually ok). Every year it takes the first two weeks of semester
>> to handhold them all through the process of getting Haskell installed
>> and working. I don't do Windows or Mac, so I don't even know why some
>> (but not all) have problems - but they do.
>> They don't have the choice to walk away, but it wastes valuable
>> learning time, and gives a negative impression. Some of them then find
>> out that they like Haskell, and some that they hate it - I suspect
>> more would like it if they weren't put off by the initial hurdle of
>> getting the damn thing working at all.
>> 
>> Having a one-click install for the popular architectures would do a
>> lot for new users, especially if it includes popular stuff like
>> QuickCheck (I suppose QuickCheck is popular - I don't do Haskell, I
>> just have to tutor it:) )
>
>Hello Julian,
>
>Thanks very much for sharing this perspective.  The more different
>perspectives we hear the better idea we have of how to improve the
>situation for a broad range of users and use cases.
>
>However, I'm a bit puzzled by the experience of your students.  The
>Downloads page[1] already contains a link to ghcup which is a
>one-click installer (or rather a one-click-to-paste-into-the-terminal
>installer) for the popular architectures.  It should work as well on
>Windows and Mac as it does on Linux.
>
>If there is any way you could share more detailed experience reports
>with us I would be very grateful.  Perhaps there's something we can
>fix or improve, but I don't know yet what!
>
>Tom
>
>
>
>[1] https://www.haskell.org/downloads/
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