[Haskell-cafe] downloading GHC

[Paulo Tanimoto]

On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 1:47 PM, Ketil Malde <ketil at malde.org> wrote:
>
> Uh, AFAIC, it's only a documentation bug - the GHC page seems to say
> that GHC comes with HP, the HP page tells to go get GHC first.  I'd just
> change it to something like:
>
> GHC:  Click here to download... then go see Haskell Platform for the
> standard set of libraries.
>
> HP: Go to GHC HQ and get GHC, then make sure to come back here for the
> libraries.
>
> (Assuming I understand how this is set up - I usually just get stuff
> from my distribution, and didn't come around to installing the HP)
>

The warning on GHC 6.12.3 download page [1] says:

"""
Stop!

For most users, we recommend installing the Haskell Platform instead
of GHC. The current Haskell Platform release includes a recent GHC
release as well as some other tools (such as cabal), and a larger set
of libraries that are known to work together. This standalone GHC
6.12.3 release is aimed primarily at package maintainers and early
adopters.
"""

That seems to be aimed at Windows (and Mac?) users, who would indeed
get a binary installer that contains GHC and the libraries from
Haskell Platform, right?  So in a sense "for most users" is right.
But I agree with you, we could improve the message.

Paulo

[1] http://www.haskell.org/ghc/download_ghc_6_12_3.html