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

[Don Stewart]

Well, the number one thing is to use Cabal and the cabal-install tool.
That is the simplest way to avoid headaches.

Regarding libraries in general, the platform project is underway, aiming
to bless a set of stable, "batteries included" packages, saving
duplicated work determining which, say, json library to use.

-- Don


jamiiecb:
> I agree completely. There is not nearly enough documentation on
> packaging in haskell and too many hackage packages are broken or do
> not install. I know several people are working on improving this but
> they seem do be doing so rather quietly. Could someone briefly outline
> what improvements are planned and what stage the current work is at? I
> remember seeing some demos at anglohaskell during the summer but
> nothing since.
> 
> Jamie
> 
> On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 3:33 PM, 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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> > Haskell-Cafe at haskell.org
> > http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
> >
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