[Haskell-cafe] Packages

[Don Stewart]

andrewcoppin:
> Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote:
> >On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 23:38:16 -0700
> >Don Stewart <dons at galois.com> wrote:
> >
> >  
> >>And by now you know where which distro has it:
> >>    
> >>    http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=18343
> >>    
> >
> >I'm sorry, Don, but you're late... Gentoo had it last night (as soon as 
> >Matthew
> >told me he uploaded it to Hackage)! ;-)
> >  
> 
> I'm sorry, I'm confused...
> 
> 1. How is putting something into a Cabal package different from just 
> handing somebody the source code and telling them to run ghc --make?
> 
> 2. If we already have a Cabal package, why do we also need seperate 
> packages for Arch, Gentoo, Debian...? Isn't Cabal cross-platform?
> 
> 3. Why isn't any of this explained in print anywhere?

It's all about users.  To see more of the philosophy here, check out,

    Haskell: Batteries Included
    http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~dons/papers/CPJS08.html

Ubiquitous, easy, complete Haskell.

-- Don