[Haskell-cafe] Re: String vs ByteString

[Andrew Coppin]

Johan Tibell wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 4:24 PM, Kevin Jardine <kevinjardine at gmail.com 
> <mailto:kevinjardine at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     One of the more puzzling aspects of Haskell for newbies is the large
>     number of libraries that appear to provide similar/duplicate
>     functionality.
>
>
> I agree.
>
> Here's a rule of thumb: If you have binary data, use Data.ByteString. 
> If you have text, use Data.Text. Those libraries have benchmarks and 
> have been well tuned by experienced Haskelleres and should be the 
> fastest and most memory compact in most cases. There are still a few 
> cases where String beats Text but they are being worked on as we speak.

Interesting. I've never even heard of Data.Text. When did that come into 
existence?

More importantly: How does the average random Haskeller discover that a 
package has become available that might be relevant to their work?