[Haskell-cafe] Can cabal be turned into a package manager?

[Scott Lawrence]

On Wed, 12 Dec 2012, Janek S. wrote:

> In the recent months there was a lot of dicussion about cabal, dependency 
> hell and alike. After reading some of these discussions there is a question 
> I just have to ask:
>
> Why not create a package manager (like rpm or apt) for Haskell software?
>
> I've been using Linux for years. Software for Linux is mostly written in C 
> and C++. There are thousands of libraries with lots of dependencies and yet: 
> a) Linux distributions manage to have package repositories that are kept in 
> a consistent state b) Linux package managers can avoid dependency hell, 
> automatically update to new packages, etc. Linux people did it! Is there any 
> technical issue that prevents Haskell people from doing exactly the same 
> thing? Or are we just having non-technical problems like lack of money or 
> developers?

Linux package managers are so "good" at avoiding dependency hell because they 
don't have to - they fetch only from repositories that are carefully 
maintained and tested by humans, in a centralized fashion. The problem of 
handling dependencies in a purely automated fashion, with no concerted human 
effort, isn't solved by any of the major linux distros AFAIK.

Which isn't to say that I think it can't be solved; just that I don't know of 
any shining star we can use as an example.

(Incidentally, many linux distros package cabal packages with the same 
centralized-testing methodology under their own package repos, and it avoids 
dependency hell quite nicely. But I think there ought to be a better 
solution.)

>
> Janek
>
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-- 
Scott Lawrence