[Haskell-cafe] real haskell difficulties (at least for me)

Tue Jan 13 11:33:17 EST 2009

My experience from using GHC under Windows XP is very similar. Many
packages (especially those involving bindings to C packages) are at
least painful to build.
Regarding encoding package: it compiles fine for me:

C:\Documents and Settings\Metharius>cabal install encoding
Resolving dependencies...
Downloading encoding-0.4.1...
Configuring encoding-0.4.1...
Preprocessing library encoding-0.4.1...
Building encoding-0.4.1...
[ 1 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.Helper.Template (
Data\Encoding\Helper\Template.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\Helper\Template.o )
[ 2 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.GB18030Data (
Data\Encoding\GB18030Data.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\GB18030Data.o )
[ 3 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.Base ( Data\Encoding\Base.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\Base.o )
[ 4 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.GB18030 ( Data\Encoding\GB18030.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\GB18030.o )
[ 5 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.KOI8U ( Data\Encoding\KOI8U.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\KOI8U.o )
[ 6 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.KOI8R ( Data\Encoding\KOI8R.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\KOI8R.o )
[ 7 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.CP1258 ( Data\Encoding\CP1258.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\CP1258.o )
Loading package ghc-prim ... linking ... done.
Loading package integer ... linking ... done.
Loading package base ... linking ... done.
Loading package syb ... linking ... done.
Loading package array-0.2.0.0 ... linking ... done.
Loading package containers-0.2.0.0 ... linking ... done.
Loading package packedstring-0.1.0.1 ... linking ... done.
Loading package pretty-1.0.1.0 ... linking ... done.
Loading package template-haskell ... linking ... done.
Loading package bytestring-0.9.1.4 ... linking ... done.
Loading package regex-base-0.72.0.2 ... linking ... done.
Loading package regex-posix-0.72.0.3 ... linking ... done.
Loading package regex-compat-0.71.0.1 ... linking ... done.
Loading package base-3.0.3.0 ... linking ... done.
[ 8 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.CP1257 ( Data\Encoding\CP1257.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\CP1257.o )
[ 9 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.CP1256 ( Data\Encoding\CP1256.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\CP1256.o )
[10 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.CP1255 ( Data\Encoding\CP1255.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\CP1255.o )
[11 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.CP1254 ( Data\Encoding\CP1254.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\CP1254.o )
[12 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.CP1253 ( Data\Encoding\CP1253.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\CP1253.o )
[13 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.CP1252 ( Data\Encoding\CP1252.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\CP1252.o )
[14 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.CP1251 ( Data\Encoding\CP1251.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\CP1251.o )
[15 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.CP1250 ( Data\Encoding\CP1250.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\CP1250.o )
[16 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.BootString (
Data\Encoding\BootString.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\BootString.o )
[17 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO885916 (
Data\Encoding\ISO885916.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO885916.o )
[18 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO885915 (
Data\Encoding\ISO885915.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO885915.o )
[19 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO885914 (
Data\Encoding\ISO885914.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO885914.o )
[20 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO885913 (
Data\Encoding\ISO885913.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO885913.o )
[21 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO885911 (
Data\Encoding\ISO885911.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO885911.o )
[22 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO885910 (
Data\Encoding\ISO885910.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO885910.o )
[23 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO88599 (
Data\Encoding\ISO88599.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO88599.o )
[24 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO88598 (
Data\Encoding\ISO88598.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO88598.o )
[25 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO88597 (
Data\Encoding\ISO88597.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO88597.o )
[26 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO88596 (
Data\Encoding\ISO88596.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO88596.o )
[27 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO88595 (
Data\Encoding\ISO88595.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO88595.o )
[28 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO88594 (
Data\Encoding\ISO88594.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO88594.o )
[29 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO88593 (
Data\Encoding\ISO88593.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO88593.o )
[30 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO88592 (
Data\Encoding\ISO88592.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO88592.o )
[31 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ISO88591 (
Data\Encoding\ISO88591.hs, dist\build\Data\Encoding\ISO88591.o )
[32 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.UTF32 ( Data\Encoding\UTF32.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\UTF32.o )
[33 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.UTF16 ( Data\Encoding\UTF16.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\UTF16.o )
[34 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.UTF8 ( Data\Encoding\UTF8.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\UTF8.o )
[35 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding.ASCII ( Data\Encoding\ASCII.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding\ASCII.o )
[36 of 37] Compiling Data.Encoding    ( Data\Encoding.hs,
dist\build\Data\Encoding.o )
[37 of 37] Compiling System.IO.Encoding ( System\IO\Encoding.hs,
dist\build\System\IO\Encoding.o )
C:\ghc\ghc-6.10.1\bin\ar.exe: creating dist\build\libHSencoding-0.4.1.a
Installing library in C:\Program Files\Haskell\encoding-0.4.1\ghc-6.10.1
Registering encoding-0.4.1...
Reading package info from "dist\\installed-pkg-config" ... done.
Writing new package config file... done.

In any case, passing -v option should be helpful for debugging.

All best

Christopher Skrzętnicki

On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 16:33, Regis Saint-Paul
<regis.saint-paul at create-net.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've seen many times the monad topic coming around on the cafe and plentiful
> tutorials on monads have been published. However, as a complete Haskell
> newbie coming from OOP, I felt monads were not particularly difficult to
> grasp, and very exciting to work with.
>
> During my experiments with Haskell so far, the main problems I kept bumping
> into were not related to the language but to its libraries: their
> compilation and installation. Unfortunately, this topic has not received
> nearly as much attention. I was unable to find a comprehensive tutorial on
> how to deal with the variety of problems I get when trying to install
> Hackage packages. This turned out to be (and still is) THE main source of
> wasted time and headaches. And worse, unlike type problems, these are not
> interesting ones to solve.
>
> Thus, as a beginner, the package management is what is really getting in the
> way of switching to Haskell--not the language. Even books like Real World
> Haskell (otherwise excellent) ignore entirely the topic. Cabal and
> Cabal-install are clearly wonderful applications that make installing most
> packages very straightforward. Unfortunately, whenever this "standard"
> method for package installation fails (or when it is not available as with,
> e.g., gtk2hs), I find myself in complete disarray.
>
> Below are some of the questions and issues I faced regarding package
> management:
>
> - For a number of packages, cabal-install gets stuck and has to be killed. I
> assume this is due to some difficulties in solving the dependencies and it
> is fine, not all can be automated and cabal-install is not responsible for
> poor packages. But the question then becomes what to do from there? Is their
> some method to solve dependencies? How should we proceed to "debug" a
> package installation? How do gurus deal with that? (maybe some less known
> command line arguments? Or ways to figure out the problem and work out its
> solution (cabal-install is silent in such case)? In particular, how to know
> why did cabal get stuck in the first place?
>
> - Some packages on Hackage are reported as not building successfully with
> GHC6.10 (e.g., encoding) while others do not build with 6.8 (e.g., salvia)
> and the later might depend on the former...What is one supposed to do in
> such case? For example, is it an appropriate way to proceed to compile a
> package with one version of GHC and then use the compiled package with
> another version of GHC? Is it safe? What could possibly go wrong? If it is
> the right way to go, how should we setup the two GHC versions? For instance,
> should we have a shared package configuration file and choose through the
> path which GHC is used or is there nicer way to set this up?
>
> - Taking for example the "encoding" package on Hackage. Last time I tried,
> the log was saying it fails to build on GHC 6.10, however, looking inside
> this Hackage log, I could see a successful compilation using "preferred
> versions". So it looks as if the thing can be compiled somehow. What should
> one do with this information? If cabal manages to compile it using this
> method on Hackage, then isn't cabal install just doing it on my disk? Is it
> possible through some command line? Is it possible manually (without
> cabal-install) and, if so, how? (I tried to copy-past the build instruction
> as it appeared on the log...that somehow compiled, but then, I failed to
> figure out how to install...)
>
> - I'm primarily a windows user and lots of my initial struggles probably
> came from that. After many difficulties, I figured out that installing MinGW
> and MSys was *THE* way to get a bit more of the things working. First, a lot
> of time would be saved by just saying clearly on the GHC download page that
> MinGW and MSys are mandatory installation (or even package that with GHC for
> the windows distribution if license allows, who cares the extra few Mb).
> Even if that is not technically exact, i.e., even if ghci and many trivial
> command line programs can work without, MSys and MinGW turn out to be quiet
> necessary whenever trying to install anything producing side effect. Making
> it plain that these two are necessary would real come has a great time
> savers for newbie like me on windows (personal opinion of course). Or, if
> another path exists to go without these two, I'd be very glad to learn.
> Besides, even these tools basic installation is not enough, you need
> automake and various things of the like. That makes me wonder if the most
> precious skill for programming with Haskell would not be a strong C/C++
> programming background.
>
> - In face of the difficulties with windows, I switched to Linux. While some
> things worked better, there were still lots of difficulties with package
> compilation. For instance, it is very difficult to figure out which Linux
> packages of a given distribution are needed for compiling this or that
> package. Again, gtk2hs is epitome here: which C development packages are
> needed to compile it is obscure at best (cairo, codeview, etc...). I ended
> up querying the Debian package management with any keyword found after
> running gtk2hs and randomly installing all the dev packages...And when
> gtk2hs finally compiled, it failed to install anyway. As of today, I've
> never been able to compile even the dumbest demo using gtk2hs whether on
> linux or on windows and whether using ghc 6.8.3 or 6.10.1. On windows, the
> automated setup install worked but did not allow me to compile with codeview
> and I still do not know how to add codeview to the install packages. Trust
> that I tried hard and read the docs thoroughly. Gtk2hs is just on of many
> examples; I had problems under Linux also with, e.g., Happs, yi, database
> things, etc. and figured out that the situation was roughly identical to
> windows with MSys and MinGW. So Linux appears not to be the right solution
> here. Maybe it's just that Linux users are more experienced with the GNU
> C/C++ libraries...but it won't help a windows user to switch to Linux since
> this knowledge can't be built out of thin air.
>
> - Would there be some binary version of cabal targeting various OSs? I
> believe the Haskell platform project is about that. But without waiting for
> a fair and objective selection of the packages (it seems to be the current
> status of the project), I'd be happy working with some authoritative bundle
> produced by a Haskell guru and would trust his subjective choices (who am I
> to question these choices anyway). Or even an image (e.g., virtual box or
> Xen) of a fully setup development environment since there are so many
> dependencies involved in, e.g., simply compiling GHC...
>
> Now, one might argue that these are not Haskell problems, that they are
> normal when dealing with non-mature packages. So let me explain why I've
> been trying hard to install these packages:
>
> As a beginner with no experience with emacs, I tried to find some IDE-like
> environment which would, at least, save me from manually reloading files in
> ghci or help me browse the source files. Following the Haskellwiki advice,
> that led to trying out Yi, Leksah, eclipsefp, or a Visual Studio extension.
> To this date, NOT ANY SINGLE ONE of these worked, be it on Linux or Windows.
> I had to resort to learning emacs which seems the only sensible choice
> available today.
>
> I am particularly unskilled, no question here. But, would a charitable soul
> take the pain of writing a comprehensive package management tutorial instead
> of a monad one, (s)he would have my deepest gratitude :)
>
> Apologies for the long mail.
>
> -Regis
>
> P.S. People on #haskell are wonderful. They helped me solve many issues.
> Unfortunately, solving specific instances of problem did not contribute much
> to a deeper understanding of the internal working. I find myself randomly
> trying things without knowing which would work or why; Hence this plea for a
> tutorial.
>
>
>
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