tweaking text on the ghc downloads page

[Gershom B]

Sure. Ccing him on this thread now.

(Note that we’re having a seperate discussion he’s involved with on -infra about signposting the HP and other options on the haskell.org/downloads page — so this is in a sense, about just making sure we only have the one big bikeshed to color rather than many little ones :-P)

—Gershom


On June 26, 2015 at 11:03:33 AM, Simon Peyton Jones (simonpj at microsoft.com) wrote:
> I’m ok with all of this, but I’d like just to check with Mark L to see how he suggests signposting  
> the HP
>  
> Simon
>  
> From: Glasgow-haskell-users [mailto:glasgow-haskell-users-bounces at haskell.org]  
> On Behalf Of Michael Snoyman
> Sent: 26 June 2015 15:59
> To: Gershom B; Glasgow-Haskell-Users users
> Subject: Re: tweaking text on the ghc downloads page
>  
> One point I've seen users confused about in the past is that some guides recommend downloading  
> GHC directly as part of setting up a full distribution, e.g.:
>  
> https://www.haskell.org/downloads/linux (manual install)
> I'd take the STOP out entirely, and just give a link to the /downloads page, to avoid this  
> confusion. The rest of your text looks spot on to me, it's literally the one word "STOP"  
> that seems to have people out of sorts most often.
>  
> On Fri, Jun 26, 2015 at 5:54 PM Gershom B >  
> wrote:
> I know there is a plan for some broader ghc webpage redesign.
>  
> In the meantime, apparently people find the current "Stop" text terribly troublesome.  
> This is because, of course, it points to the platform and now some people believe that  
> a minimal distribution is more usable, etc.
>  
> Just to take this issue off the agenda, I would like, if there are no objections, to just  
> change that text as follows.
>  
> Current:
>  
> "Stop!
>  
> For most users, we recommend installing the _Haskell Platform_ instead of GHC. The current  
> Haskell Platform release includes a recent GHC release as well as some other tools (such  
> as cabal), and a larger set of libraries that are known to work together."
>  
> Proposed:
>  
> "Stop!
>  
> For most users, we recommend installing _a proper distribution_ instead of just GHC.  
> A distribution includes a recent GHC release as well as other important tools (such as  
> cabal, for installing libraries), and potentially a broader set of libraries known  
> to work together."
>  
> And where before the "Haskell Platform" text would link to of course the platform page,  
> the new "proper distribution" text would now link to https://www.haskell.org/downloads  
> where we could then argue to our heart's content about the best way to present the various  
> download and installation options as we go forward.
>  
> So, this doesn't resolve any controversy, but it at least centralizes it.
>  
> If there's no objection, I'll try to get to this tomorrow?
>  
> --Gershom
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