Version control systems

[Manuel M T Chakravarty]

Simon Marlow:
> Manuel M T Chakravarty wrote:
>> To be honest, if you ask me, I'd go back to the old makefile based  
>> system and remove Cabal from everywhere except building of the  
>> library packages.
>
> I wouldn't object to dropping the use of Cabal for other tools in  
> the build tree; the reasons for using it elsewhere are certainly not  
> as compelling as for packages.
>
> Ian, I realise this means backing out a lot of the work you've been  
> doing recently, and it would mean that we'd lose a lot of time in  
> the runup to 6.10.1, but perhaps it's a step that we need to take to  
> get us back on the right track again?

I do realise that this would mean backing out a lot of Ian recent  
work, and that's why I haven't proposed going back to the old system  
before you explicitly asked.  However, I am increasingly getting the  
feeling that the move to Cabal was pre-mature, and the overall loss  
will be minimised by backing out now.

In a sense, it was an interesting experiment and it should still be  
useful to the development of Cabal.  In fact, I see no reason why the  
experiment cannot be continued on a branch.  Who knows, maybe Cabal is  
sufficiently mature in a year to make a switch worthwhile?  I just  
object to using the whole GHC developer community as guinea pigs.

Manuel