[Haskell-cafe] [Haskell] JustHub 'Sherkin' Release

[Peter Simons]

Hi Chris,

 > Where is this functionality provided by Nix?

simply run these commands

 # Haskell Platform 2009.2.0.2
 nix-env -p ~/ghc-6.10.4 -iA haskellPackages_ghc6104.haskellPlatform

 # Haskell Platform 2010.2.0.0
 nix-env -p ~/ghc-6.12.3 -iA haskellPackages_ghc6123.haskellPlatform

 # Haskell Platform 2012.2.0.0'
 nix-env -p ~/ghc-7.4.1 -iA haskellPackages_ghc741.haskellPlatform

and you'll have profiles that contain the appropriate binaries and
libraries defined by the corresponding platform. Nix can do this without
any superuser privileges on Linux, Darwin, and BSD Unix, although I have
to say that BSD support is limited because there seem to be very few
people using Nix on BSD. (I reckon the BSD people are happy with their
BSD ports and aren't interested in a third-party package manager.)

Furthermore, Nix can many different versions of *any* package
simultaneously, not just Haskell:

  nix-env -p ~/python-2.6.7 -iA python26
  nix-env -p ~/python-2.7.3 -iA python27
  nix-env -p ~/python-3.2.3 -iA python3

Anyone who's interested in Nix can find lots of information on the web
site <http://nixos.org/>. There's also the IRC channel #nixos on
irc.freenode.org where some Nix developers hang out. Last but not least,
there is the developer mailing list <nix-dev at cs.uu.nl>.

I'll be happy to answer any further questions that may arise.

Take care,
Peter