[Haskell-beginners] Library source

[Daniel Fischer]

Am Mittwoch 10 März 2010 15:07:07 schrieb Dave Bayer:
> On Mar 8, 2010, at 1:05 PM, Stephen Tetley wrote:
> > Haven't the 'standard' libs (aka the Hierarchical libs)  they always
> > been here with a GHC install?
> >
> > <ghc-version>/doc/html/...
> >
> > Html docs for GHC, Haskell Hierarchical Libraries (with marked-up)
> > source, Cabal
>
> First, in GHC 6.12 there are fewer standard libraries: Only those needed
> to build GHC itself. Before 6.12 one could learn Haskell and get many
> things done without venturing into Cabal libraries. Now many of the
> libraries one took as "standard" in the past are Cabal installs.

Actually, since 6.8 (or was it even 6.6?), you needed the extralibs bundle 
for a somewhat comprehensive installation to get things going smoothly.
That extralibs bundle has been replaced by/expanded to the platform, which 
is basically a good thing (I hope that, now the base-split is done, the 
platform releases can follow the GHC releases more closely).

> Meanwhile, as one gains experience with Haskell one ventures beyond the
> "standard" libraries, and also expects full documentation.
>
> Here's a ticket (not started by me) indicating that Cabal's default is
> not to make all possible documentation, and this default is hard to
> change:
>
> 	http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/517
>
> I found this ticket because I was missing documentation that I expected.
> Can't tell you which files now; after my work-around I have everything
> that I expect.
>
> Don't get me wrong, building from source then using "cabal install" is
> by far the best option I know. I just wish that all options (every
> platform-specific binary install, Haskell Platform, source then cabal
> install) would provide every conceivable Haddock HTML file with links.

Aye.

I've spent several hours trying to get into the cabal-install code to offer 
a fix, but I've barely scratched the surface :(
So for the time being, I have to resort to my evil work-around and change 
the Cabal sources for each new release.

>
> In calculus we teach students to look both at critical points and the
> endpoints of an interval for optima. I'm saying here that the optimum is
> the "document all source code" end of the interval.

+1

> It's an easy
> principle to articulate, and we don't follow it. I'm asking why not, and
> speculating that it's simply a dated habit that hasn't been reexamined
> recently. Hey, my primary drives are all solid state, and I have enough
> room for source code. In the era of $80 TB drives, this seems a
> no-brainer.

I have only 150GB and I've plenty of space for source code and hscoloured 
sources too.