[Haskell-beginners] latest Haskell Platform build fails

[Heinrich Apfelmus]

Mateusz Kowalczyk wrote:
> On 10/18/2014 01:16 PM, Michael Martin wrote:
>> 
>> I find it astonishing that build/install fails because it finds
>> that a dependency that it needs is already installed. This is
>> totally unreasonable. I was really looking forward to experimenting
>> with Cloud Haskell, but the pain of installation, coupled with
>> Haskell's well-known issues with "dependency hell", have soured me
>> on Haskell. The language itself is amazing - I really like it. But
>> I'm afraid that the dysfunctional nature of the Haskell ecosystem
>> is driving me back to Erlang/OTP. OTP has proven to be industrial 
>> strength. I hope that someday (soon), Haskell will be able to claim
>>  that, as well.
>> 
> 
> Why don't you use [1] instead of getting the source binary and
> finding yourself struggling? It comes with GHC.
> 
> [1]: http://www.haskell.org/platform/linux.html#binary

Indeed. Michael, don't make this harder on yourself than it needs to be. 
I know, you're using Linux, but it's just easier to download the binary 
and run the installer. Trying to compile source code in an ecosystem 
that you are not familiar with yet is likely to give you headaches. The 
download site for GHC explicitly says "Stop! For most users, we 
recommend installing the Haskell Platform instead of GHC" in big red 
letters.

Also, Michael, you don't actually have to install the platform. You 
*already have* a working Haskell environment, as you managed to install 
GHC and cabal just fine. Besides the packaging, the Haskell platform 
just contains some useful packages, which you can easily install after 
the fact via cabal.


Best regards,
Heinrich Apfelmus

--
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