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

[Rustom Mody]

On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 1:29 AM, Brandon Allbery <allbery.b at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 12:51 PM, Andre Cunha <andrecunha.usp at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Janek, did you mean something like Rubygems (http://rubygems.org)? It
>> manages the download, installation and manipulation of Ruby packages,
>> called "gems". A gem can contain executable programs or libraries (just
>> like traditional packages, like .rpm). Rubygems also handles dependencies
>> between gems, and allows you to update them.
>>
>
> But doesn't solve the actual problem;
>

Considering that this question is such a FAQ, I believe it would be
worthwhile discussing  what we think the 'actual problem' is.

When Algol-60 was being implemented, the challenge was how to compile using
only 2000 words of memory (or something as ridiculous as that). The
solution was to make a compiler with 20-odd passes.
[Sorry if the details are wrong; its from (neurological) memory]

Today not just compilers but databases are vying with each other to go back
from disk to memory -- hardly surprising considering that a vanilla machine
bought today has a TB of disk and GBs of memory.

In short the goal-posts shift with time and we need to readjust priorities
accordingly.

For myself if the total disk usage of my haskell-related installation were
to go up from being linear in the number of packages to quadratic, I am
unlikely to care.  Of course total naivete in package-management strategy
may make it exponential which would make me sit up!

Reminds me of a restatement/corollary to Moore's law I recently saw:
Programmers' cost increase exponentially with time.

Just alpha-rename 'programmer' to 'cabal-installer'


On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 12:19 AM, Ertugrul Söylemez <es at ertes.de> wrote:

> I'm afraid the burden is that you would have to write the necessary Nix
> expressions for your Haskell packages, so until we create a real Nix
> channel for Hackage the barrier to entry is high.  But it's certainly
> possible as a community project.
>
>
I believe you are saying something significant here. Here's my rendering of
it.

Currently we have a 'managed' hackage server talking to an unmanaged cabal
client (in the sense of
http://ivanmiljenovic.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/repeat-after-me-cabal-is-not-a-package-manager
/  )

We need to move to hackage talking to a managed (as with nix) client.

So what work is needed to make this happen?

-- 
http://www.the-magus.in
http://blog.languager.org
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