[Haskell-cafe] Backward compatibility

[Raphael Gaschignard]

On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 4:37 PM, Simon Peyton-Jones <simonpj at microsoft.com>wrote:

>  One of the great things about the Haskell mailing lists is the
> supportive, respectful tone that is the dominant mode of discourse.  I
> sense that things are getting a little out of control in this particular
> thread.  Even though this particular issue is clearly extremely frustrating
> for those involved, it would be great to turn down the emotional
> temperature.****
>

I don’t know why Haskell folk tend to be so generous and helpful, but they
> really are. (Maybe it’s the hylomorphisms.)  Anyway, let’s keep it that way.
> ****
>
>
Agreed, the thing that surprised me the most when I started reading this
list was how nice people were, even when faced with some pretty hostile
people.

I think we all agree that dependency management is hard in any system,
especially with a lot of generally unmaintained pieces. And the fact that
100% backwards compatibility doesn't seem to be a directive in the language
committee like it might be for languages like C++ might frustrate people.

I'm pretty sure most of us have experienced some issue with dependencies
breaking , and its probably the most frustrating problem we can have have
in any language. It's hard not to take this all a bit personally. Maybe if
we think more about how to solve this (getting people to maintain their
stuff, for example) we can make the world a better place instead of
bickering about issues that are more or less language-agnostic really.

On a side note is there a place where we can see what packages have broken
on recent releases?



>
> Simon****
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* haskell-cafe-bounces at haskell.org [mailto:
> haskell-cafe-bounces at haskell.org] *On Behalf Of *Gregory Collins
> *Sent:* 03 May 2013 08:27
> *To:* Adrian May
> *Cc:* Haskell Cafe
> *Subject:* Re: [Haskell-cafe] Backward compatibility****
>
> ** **
>
> On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 6:48 AM, Adrian May <adrian.alexander.may at gmail.com>
> wrote:****
>
>  May I venture a guess that you never tried to manage a 5-10 million line
> project?****
>
>  ** **
>
> I build a project a couple orders of magnitude bigger than that dozens of
> times every day. Similar stories are not uncommon among people who inhabit
> this list. But thanks, citing that figure as an excuse to be condescending
> to that person was really worth a giggle this morning. :)****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
>  That's what I do. I'm not a programmer, I'm a manager. I run teams of a
> few dozen people on subprojects within huge telecom-related projects, and
> my job is to try and keep it all from collapsing in a heap of bugs. ****
>
> ** **
>
> If you had any experience of that you'd run a mile from any technology
> with this hit and miss attitude. ****
>
>  ** **
>
> You keep saying things like this. Actually, you're in this situation
> because one or more people within your organization have made a succession
> of very bad choices. Haskell is not to blame. Personally, I almost can't
> believe you're taking this tack on the list now that the details of your
> situation are apparent: you've let a 5-10 million line project spiral out
> of control without putting the necessary software engineering
> infrastructure and controls in place.****
>
> ** **
>
>  ****
>
>  I can't tell people what version they should be using because half of
> them work for a completely different company. They have their own
> dependencies coming from other projects that I'm not even allowed to know
> about.****
>
>
> ... and the truth emerges. This issue you're having reflects a lot more
> strongly on your technical culture than it does on any instability in GHC.
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> Listen: someone within your organization decided to build a product based
> on a very old library which is no longer maintained by anyone. If this
> library were actually critical to your business, you would fork it and
> either get someone in-house or pay a contractor to fix bugs and keep it up
> to date. (And there are plenty of people here who might be interested in a
> contract gig to fix this for you if you asked).****
>
> ** **
>
> Repeatedly claiming in the most histrionic terms that GHC ought to freeze
> forever and never deprecate anything again so that you can avoid doing your
> job properly is simply not realistic, especially given Haskell's social
> culture (newsflash: it's a research platform), and is not going to garner
> you any sympathy on this list, either. You could practically be the poster
> boy for why we have the motto "avoid success at all costs".
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> You have two options: stay on GHC 6.x (the bits didn't get deleted from
> the internet), and if that isn't practical, fix Wash (or pay someone to do
> it if you don't know how) and get on with your life.****
>
> ** **
>
> G****
>
> --
> Gregory Collins <greg at gregorycollins.net> ****
>
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>
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