wither the Platform

[Richard Eisenberg]

Forgive me, all, for asking what many may think a silly question, but I must ask:

What's wrong with the platform?

One non-answer to this question:
- "It's always out-of-date." This statement, while true, isn't a direct indication that something is wrong. How does its age bite? Is the GHC version too old, meaning that users can't install the packages they want? (Are there an older versions of those packages available that *do* work? If so, does cabal find them?) Or, are the packages that ship with the platform out-of-date, causing installation trouble because of high lower-bounds on other packages?

My question here hints at the fact that I'm a bit old-fashioned. I generally don't mind when things are out of date, provided that I don't need the new features. Maybe I'm in the minority here, and that the majority of newcomers to Haskell feel the burning need to have the very latest release of everything. But I, personally, would rather have ease of installation and be able to get moving forward without a headache than to have the new, shiny -- especially if I know how to get the new, shiny later if I should need it.

Thanks,
Richard