[Haskell-beginners] cabal install errors & issues

[Gregory Guthrie]

Thanks.
Yes, I only do simple things, so also thought I could use it as  a plug-and-play beginner, but even trying to install a few libraries for demos or other class projects (e.g. diagrams, .) put me into the midst of the cabal install dependencies not possible "you must use force, and that will break things" jungle.

I am hoping I just made a mistake using cabal-install, and if I can do a conversion into cabal-dev I will exit the various tangles. But the conversion itself seems troublesome. Perhaps I should start over with a clean install, and just avoid any cabal-install usage?

Any hints on how to reset /restart the libraries and package repositories?

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>> It really depends on what you are looking to teach!
>> For professional dev with lots of packages and different projects then sandboxing is a must.
>> I imagine for a lab you could get away with what's in the haskell platform. I got cabal-dev going on a windows box not too long ago. When I get >> home I will have a tinker.
>> I am sure someone with more windows experience than I can chime in.
>> On Aug 16, 2012 6:28 PM, "Gregory Guthrie" <guthrie at mum.edu> wrote:
>> Thanks for the clarification and info.
>>
>> From this I then deduce:
>>  Using "cabal install" is dangerous, and leads to broken package structure (inconsistent package versions and shadowing).
>>  Better to use cabal-dev,
>>    But it requires network, which is external to Haskell, and a pain to build (on windows)...
>>
>> Thus, no good solution on Windows - is this right?
>>
>> Since Windows is 94%+ of computing environments today (all of our labs use Windows, and "standard" IDEs), then Haskell is not a good fit?
>> We want to use Windows since that is what students will generally see in their professional environments.
>>
>> I hope not...!!  :-)
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Ahh, I think network is a pain to build on Windows.
>>  I don't as a rule do any haskell on windows because of the headaches of msys / mingw.