[Haskell-cafe] XCode Dependency for HP on Mac

[Judah Jacobson]

On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 7:59 AM, Tom Murphy <amindfv at gmail.com> wrote:
> +1 - does anyone know the answer to this?
>
> On Jul 27, 2011 2:04 PM, "Chris Smith" <cdsmith at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, 2011-07-27 at 07:20 -0400, Jack Henahan wrote:
>>> Bundling things with the HP is just going to bloat that download
>>> and confuse new users more (and my god, the dep-chasing... the
>>> number of libs that might have to be piled in on top of it could
>>> be absurd).
>>
>> I don't understand this. Are you saying it would be too hard for the
>> Haskell Platform maintainers to build the install kits? It seems like
>> bundling gcc would be just the thing to solve all the problems with the
>> XCode dependency (which I'm now told include not just the install-time
>> dependencies, but also the Haskell Platform regularly breaking with
>> every new operating system release).

Has anyone ever (say, in the last 5 years) maintained a separate gcc
distribution for the Mac?  I'm unaware of any such production.   Even
MacPorts requires the developer tools to be preinstalled:

http://www.macports.org/install.php

In contrast, Windows has both the MinGW and Cygwin projects which each
provide a port of gcc with a (partial or complete) POSIX compatibility
layer.  GHC and the HP include MinGW on Windows.

The Mac developer community at large has determined that the most
programmer-friendly option is to just install the free tools provided
by Apple:

 - Every DVD of OS X has come with an optional install of the Dev
Tools.  The only exception is 10.7, which has to be downloaded itself
anyway.

 -  I just double-checked on developer.apple.com; with my free
registration I can still download every version of the Developer Tools
since at least 2004.  Even the latest, Xcode 4.1, can be downloaded
directly from that site without logging into the App Store.

As a side anecdote, I've been the teaching assistant several times for
a college course on introductory C++.  I've told my students with Macs
that if they want to write programs at home they should install the
Dev Tools, and I've posted a short list of instructions on my website.
 Nearly all of them have found it very easy to get started working in
Xcode, either by installing it from a DVD or by downloading it from
online.

Best,
-Judah