GHC 7.8 release?

[Brandon Allbery]

On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 4:02 PM, Simon Peyton-Jones
<simonpj at microsoft.com>wrote:

> What causes the "wave of package updates"?  Just because GHC 7.8 (say)
> comes out, no package author need lift a finger.  The Haskell Platform sets
> the pace for package updates. When the Haskell Platform comes out, now THAT
> is indeed a trigger for a wave of updates.  Authors of packages in HP are
> forced to act; authors of other packages want their packages to work with
> the next HP.
>

(a) There are packages which tend to track GHC's latest version instead of
the HP (yesod used to do this, which was a source of much pain).

(b) There are linux distributions which always track the latest everything,
often in a rolling-release fashion (notably Arch).  They are actively
hostile to the Platform, and a source of even greater pain.  Many package
authors update because Arch users demand it and openly insult anyone who
points them to the Platform or any policy which suggests that anything
other then the absolutely latest version is acceptable.

You *might* be able to control expectations with respect to (a); (b) is not
subject to any variety of reason.  It will produce as much pressure as it
has users, plus multiply that pressure by the number of package authors who
are also users.

-- 
brandon s allbery kf8nh                               sine nomine associates
allbery.b at gmail.com                                  ballbery at sinenomine.net
unix, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure, xmonad        http://sinenomine.net
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