[Haskell-cafe] Re: Ubuntu Haskell

[Titto Assini]

Hi Magnus,

you wife must be very advanced if she plans to install xmonad, I read
the installation docs recently and recoiled in horror :-)

To go back to the subject under discussion, I can perfectly see the
need for having ready made distribution packages for:
- the haskell compilers
- cabal
- a few programs that have end user appeal and that are used beyond
the haskell community (darcs and xmonad spring to mind)

But why bother to build binary distributions for the hundreds of
packages that are just raw ingredients to the haskell development
process?

It seems to me that it adds confusion (two ways of installing things
rather than one) while reducing flexibility and 'freshness' of
installation.

Best,

      titto


On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 10:37 AM, Magnus Therning <magnus at therning.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 9:33 AM, Titto Assini <titto at quicquid.org> wrote:
>> Can anyone explain why, now that we have cabal and therefore package
>> installation is just a short "cabal install X" away do  we need
>> distribution specific binary packages?
>>
>> I personally prefer my hackage packages freshly cooked ...
>
> In my mind it all comes down to _user_ convenience.  As a developer I
> don't mind using Cabal to pull and install in the latest and greatest
> from Hackage.  However, I _really_ don't see my wife ever doing the
> same just to try out the greatest window manager through time: Xmonad.
>
> Cabal+Hackage is great, but they don't take away the need for distro
> pacakges.  The story is the same for Haskell as it is for Perl, Ruby,
> Python, etc...
>
> I am sure there are other reasons in favour of packaging for distros,
> but this is the one _I_ care about :-)
>
> /M
>
> --
> Magnus Therning                        (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4)
> magnus＠therning．org          Jabber: magnus＠therning．org
> http://therning.org/magnus         identi.ca|twitter: magthe
>



-- 
Pasqualino "Titto" Assini, Ph.D.
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