[Haskell-cafe] Re: String vs ByteString

[Don Stewart]

andrewcoppin:
> 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?

In this case, Data.Text has been announced on this very list several
times:
    
   Text 0.7 announcement
    http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2009-December/070866.html

   Text 0.5 announcement
    http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2009-October/067517.html

   Text 0.2 announcement
    http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2009-May/061800.html

   Text 0.1 annoucnement
    http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2009-February/056723.html

As well as on Planet Haskell several times:

   Finally! Fast Unicode support for Haskell
     http://www.serpentine.com/blog/2009/02/27/finally-fast-unicode-support-for-haskell/

   Streaming Unicode support for Haskell: text 0.2
     http://www.serpentine.com/blog/2009/05/22/streaming-unicode-support-for-haskell-text-02/

   Case conversion and text 0.3
     http://www.serpentine.com/blog/2009/06/07/case-conversion-and-text-03/

As well as being presented at Anglo Haskell

    http://www.wellquite.org/non-blog/AngloHaskell2008/tom%20harper.pdf

It is mentioned repeatedly in the quarterly Hackage status posts:

    "vector and text are quickly rising as the preferred arrays and unicode libraries" 
      http://donsbot.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/the-haskell-platform-q1-2010-report/

    "text has made it into the top 30 libraries"
      http://donsbot.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/popular-haskell-packages-q2-2010-report/

    Ranked 31st most popular package by June 2010.
      http://code.haskell.org/~dons/hackage/Jun-2010/popular.txt

    Ranked 41st most popular package by April 2010.
      http://www.galois.com/~dons/hackage/april-2010/popularity.csv

    Ranked 345th by August 2009
      http://www.galois.com/~dons/hackage/august-2009/popularity-august-2009.html

And discussed on Reddit Haskell many times:

    http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/8qfvw/doing_unicode_case_conversion_and_error_recovery/

    http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/80smp/datatext_fast_unicode_bytestrings_with_stream/

    http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/80smp/datatext_fast_unicode_bytestrings_with_stream/

    http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/ade08/the_performance_of_datatext/

So, to stay up to date, but without drowning in data. Do one of:

    * Pay attention to Haskell Cafe announcements
    * Follow the Reddit Haskell news.
    * Read the quarterly reports on Hackage
    * Follow Planet Haskell

-- Don