[arch-haskell] trying to understand haskell-platform on Arch

[Thomas Girod]

Hi list,

I have questions about how the haskell-platform is working with Arch. I must be
missing something, please correct me :

- The haskell-platform package is a bundle of libraries/tools of specific
  versions that works well together
- Each new version of the haskell-platform updates those libraries/tools to a
  more recent versions

But then, when I look at the PKGBUILD of haskell-platform, why does it have all
the content of the platform declared as dependencies ? And if everything is
installed as dependencies, why is the haskell-platform tarball downloaded
anyway ?

> depends=('gmp' 'ghc' 'haskell-cabal' 'haskell-glut=2.1.1.2'
> 'haskell-http=4000.0.6' 'haskell-opengl=2.2.1.1' 'haskell-cgi=3001.1.7.1'
> 'haskell-editline=0.2.1.0' 'haskell-fgl=5.4.2.2' 'haskell-network=2.2.1.4'
> 'haskell-time=1.1.2.4' 'haskell-zlib=0.5.0.0' 'cabal-install' 'alex' 'happy'
> 'haddock')

Right now haskell-platform fails to install because community repo contains
haskell-http version 4000.0.7, while AUR contains the 4000.0.6 version, and
yaourt somehow fails to pick the right version - the problem can be solved
easily, but needs human intervention. 

As all libraries/tools included in haskell-platform have their own independent
release-cycles on Hackage, does it mean that the "Hackage -> AUR bridge" delays
the releases of haskell-platform dependencies so they match the
haskell-platform release cycle ?

I wonder why the haskell-platform PKGBUILD doesn't declare its content by using
the "provides" parameter, and avoid conflicts with the latest versions of those
libraries on AUR by also listing them in the "replaces" parameter.

Anyway, thanks for all the work you are achieving !

Cheers

Tom