[Haskell-cafe] Call for Contributions - Haskell Communities and Activities Report, November 2011 edition

[Janis Voigtländer]

Dear all,

I would like to collect contributions for the 21st edition of the

================================================================
              Haskell Communities & Activities Report

http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell_Communities_and_Activities_Report

               Submission deadline: 1 November 2011

      (please send your contributions to hcar at haskell.org,
                  in plain text or LaTeX format)
================================================================

This is the short story:

* If you are working on any project that is in some way related
   to Haskell, please write a short entry and submit it. Even if
   the project is very small or unfinished or you think it is not
   important enough --- please reconsider and submit an entry anyway!

* If you are interested in an existing project related to Haskell that
   has not previously been mentioned in the HCAR, please tell me, so
   that I can contact the project leaders and ask them to submit an
   entry.

* Feel free to pass on this call for contributions to others that
   might be interested.

More detailed information:

The Haskell Communities & Activities Report is a bi-annual overview of
the state of Haskell as well as Haskell-related projects over the
last, and possibly the upcoming six months. If you have only recently
been exposed to Haskell, it might be a good idea to browse the
May 2011 edition --- you will find interesting topics described as
well as several starting points and links that may provide answers to
many questions.

Contributions will be collected until the submission deadline. They
will then be compiled into a coherent report that is published online
as soon as it is ready. As always, this is a great opportunity to
update your webpages, make new releases, announce or even start new
projects, or to talk about developments you want every Haskeller to
know about!

Looking forward to your contributions,

Janis (current editor)


FAQ:

Q: What format should I write in?

A: The required format is a LaTeX source file, adhering to the template
that is available at:

      http://haskell.org/communities/11-2011/template.tex

There is also a LaTeX style file at

      http://haskell.org/communities/11-2011/hcar.sty

that you can use to preview your entry. If you do not know LaTeX, then
use plain text. If you modify an old entry that you have written for an
earlier edition of the report, you should already have received your old
entry as a template (provided I have your valid email address). Please
modify that template, rather than using your own version of the old
entry as a template.

Q: Can I include Haskell code?

A: Yes. Please consider using lhs2tex syntax
(http://people.cs.uu.nl/andres/lhs2tex/). The report is compiled in mode
polycode.fmt.

Q: Can I include images?

A: Yes, you are even encouraged to do so. Please use .jpg format, then.

Q: Should I send files in .zip archives or similar?

A: No, plain file attachements are the way. If you have several entries
to submit, it helps if you send them in separate emails.

Q: How much should I write?

A: Authors are asked to limit entries to about one column of text. This
corresponds to approximately one page, or 40 lines of text, with the
above style and template.

A general introduction is helpful. Apart from that, you should focus on
recent or upcoming developments. Pointers to online content can be given
for more comprehensive or "historic" overviews of a project. Images do
not count towards the length limit, so you may want to use this
opportunity to pep up entries. There is no minimum length of an entry!
The report aims for being as complete as possible, so please consider
writing an entry, even if it is only a few lines long.

Q: Which topics are relevant?

A: All topics which are related to Haskell in some way are relevant. We
usually had reports from users of Haskell (private, academic, or
commercial), from authors or contributors to projects related to
Haskell, from people working on the Haskell language, libraries, on
language extensions or variants. We also like reports about
distributions of Haskell software, Haskell infrastructure, books and
tutorials on Haskell. Reports on past and upcoming events related to
Haskell are also relevant. Finally, there might be new topics we do not
even think about. As a rule of thumb: if in doubt, then it probably is
relevant and has a place in the HCAR. You can also ask the editor.

Q: Is unfinished work relevant? Are ideas for projects relevant?

A: Yes! You can use the HCAR to talk about projects you are currently
working on. You can use it to look for other developers that might help
you. You can use it to write "wishlist" items for libraries and
language features you would like to see implemented.

Q: If I do not update my entry, but want to keep it in the report, what
should I do?

A: Tell the editor that there are no changes. The old entry will
typically be reused in this case, but it might be dropped if it is older
than a year, to give more room and more attention to projects that
change a lot. Do not resend complete entries if you have not changed them.