[arch-haskell] How to determine whether a package is in or out in [haskell]?

[Nicolas Pouillard]

On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 10:07 PM, Magnus Therning <magnus at therning.org> wrote:
> Now we have 300+ packages in [haskell].  It's starting to be a large
> set, and the time required to build when something changes is starting
> to really be felt now. So I would like to start a discussion on how we
> should decide what criteria to use when adding a package, and equally
> important, what criteria to use when dropping a package.
>
> My _impression_ is that additions have been a bit willy-nilly.  Guided
> only by what the maintainers fancy at the moment.  I also don't think
> that we've ever dropped a package, ever.
>
> I feel it's important to me to know that the resources I put into
> ArchHaskell is appreciated, and every added package increases the
> resources required. I therefore would like to know that each and ever
> package in [haskell] is there for a good reason.
>
> I feel I need to bring this up because there are a few packages in
> [haskell] that I suspect are there, but aren't widely used. To point
> fingers, the chief reason is Agda :)  This is a package that has a
> mere 13 votes in AUR, and it takes more than an hour to build it on my
> laptop (about 70 minutes to be more precise). On each platform!

Why doing this kind of builds on a laptop? I mean if we had no other
way... I'm a using fast desktop host I have access to.

BTW I have all the packages built and was ready to push them when
I saw you already updated half of them (x86_64) and still no commit
on git.

Can I push mine?

Moreover I'm not fond of this kind of race.

> So, what are our options when it comes to deciding what's in and
> what's out?  Any thoughts?

I'm not for selecting a few highly used packages, but as much as
possible working packages that are needed at some point. To do
so we must improve our tools and workflow to deal seamlessly with
the amount of packages.

So for me we move out broken packages that we cannot quickly fix
if they are not much used.

> Oh, and can I please drop Agda in the meantime? ;)

I'm not in favor of that.

-- 
Nicolas Pouillard
http://nicolaspouillard.fr