Haskell Support on Windows (Simon Peyton Jones)

[Carter Schonwald]

Kyle, we need you to help us with windows support! :-)

On Tuesday, April 1, 2014, Simon Peyton Jones <simonpj at microsoft.com> wrote:

>  A couple of poor assumptions are made here.
>
>
>
> I’m not sure where “here” is.   In my email I specifically said exactly
> what you are saying (only I was not as eloquent as you).
>
>
>
> What we need is some developers who are willing to give some love and
> support to the Windows version of GHC.  And *they* really are thin on the
> ground, unfortunately.
>
>
>
> Simon
>
>
>
> *From:* ghc-devs [mailto:ghc-devs-bounces at haskell.org<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','ghc-devs-bounces at haskell.org');>]
> *On Behalf Of *Kyle Van Berendonck
> *Sent:* 01 April 2014 13:54
> *To:* ghc-devs at haskell.org<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','ghc-devs at haskell.org');>
> *Subject:* Re: Haskell Support on Windows (Simon Peyton Jones)
>
>
>
> A couple of poor assumptions are made here.
>
> The first is that the userbase of GHC on Windows is poor. This is false.
> In fact, the poor state of Windows is mentioned on #haskell more frequently
> as of late. In the last week I've talked almost every day to (different)
> people who have had Windows woes with using GHC. The hacker-base isn't here
> at the moment - I agree, but the user-base most certainly is. Could this be
> a problem with the demographic, or could it just be that Windows
> development isn't inviting? The build system and default test failures
> in-particular are a source of discouragement.
>
> The second assumption is that GHC/Haskell will be worth a dime in the
> RealWorld without Windows as a primary tier platform. I'm going to put a
> crude guess that given the overwhelming magnitude of C#/F# coming up on my
> local careers portal that there's far more industry on Windows than on OSX
> or Linux. Those are all the businesses where the probability that they will
> ever touch Haskell goes from `probably not right now` to `impossible`. Let
> me also remind you that Windows still holds 89.2% of operating system
> market share ie the people that hackers and developers actually have to
> deploy their applications to.
>
> Sorry to sound fumey, but there's all this suggesting that everyone would
> have a better day if we dropped Windows (let's be honest, if it wasn't a
> primary tier platform nobody would have fixed it for 7.8), but I doubt few
> of the people who think it's a "great idea" or sslt have actually thought
> through whether it's the best thing for Haskell or just the best thing to
> get 7.8 into their hands a couple weeks sooner.
>
> Regards.
>
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