[Haskell-beginners] latest Haskell Platform build fails

[Michael Martin]

On 10/19/2014 02:55 AM, Heinrich Apfelmus wrote:
> 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
>
> -- 
> http://apfelmus.nfshost.com
>

Thanks for the clarification, Heinrich. It was not apparent to me just 
what the Platform package
represented. I'll continue to evaluate Haskell.

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