[Haskell-cafe] The instability of Haskell libraries

[John Goerzen]

Don Stewart wrote:
> I'll just quickly mention one factor that contributes:
> 
>     * In 2.5 years we've gone from 10 libraries on Hackage to 2023 (literally!)
> 
> That is a massive API to try to manage, hence the continuing move to
> focus on automated QA on Hackage, and automated tools -- no one wants
> to have to resolve those dependencies by hand.

Yep, it's massive, and it's exciting.  We seem to have gone from stodgy 
old language to scrappy hot one.  Which isn't a bad thing at all.

Out of those 2023, there are certain libraries where small changes 
impact a lot of people (say base, time, etc.)  I certainly don't expect 
all 2023 to be held to the same standard as base and time.  We certainly 
need to have room in the community for libraries that change rapidly too.

I'd propose a very rough measuring stick: anything in the platform ought 
to be carefully considered for introducing incompatibilities.  Other 
commonly-used libraries, such as HaXML and HDBC, perhaps should fit in 
that criteria as well.

-- John