[Haskell-cafe] The instability of Haskell libraries

[Gwern Branwen]

On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 7:17 PM, Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
<ivan.miljenovic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Keith Sheppard <keithshep at gmail.com> writes:
>> Set up a server to poll the "Source-Repository head" of every hackage
>> package that includes one in it's cabal file, then rerun the build any
>> time a change is detected. This may be a good excuse to implement a
>> pluggable continuous integration server in haskell too along the lines
>> of what Hudson is for java... maybe an idea for the next GSoC
>
> Several problems with this:
>
> 1) Is this going to support every VCS under the sun?

We only need to support 3 or 4 to get 99% of the stuff on Hackage that
lives in a VCS at all.

> 2) Not all head repositories are kept stable/buildable at all times.

Perfect, meet better. Wait, no no - aw goddammit Perfect! Why do you
do this every single time? *You* get to mop the floor this time.

> 3) I can see this getting expensive wrt space and network usage.

Not really. I do much the same thing locally. Most repos hardly ever change.

My own local repos - which includes all of patch-tag, a few GHCs, some
intermediate builds, and whatnot - is about 4.5G. By my calculations*
that's about 25¢ of hard-drive space.

* http://forre.st/storage#sata

-- 
gwern