[Haskell-cafe] Changes to Haskell Weekly News: In with the Old, In with the New

[Kim-Ee Yeoh]

Dear Reader,

A few days ago Daniel Santa Cruz stepped down from the helm of Haskell
Weekly News. With others that read HWN regularly, I thank him for his long
service and wish him and his family godspeed.

Did you know John Goerzen started HWN in August 2, 2005? Now a week from
today, February 21, 2015, Simon and Simon shall close your window of
opportunity to opine on drastic changes to the prelude. By sheer
coincidence, the very first issue of HWN links to a thread on Updating the
Haskell Standard. John himself started the thread.

Today the talk is about the Foldable and Traversable type classes.

Back then it was about Overlapping and Undecidable instances, the FFI, and
a Hierarchical namespace. But these are all features we take for granted
today.

What sweeping changes took hold over the last ten years.

There was no hackage. Only in September 2005 did Isaac Jones and David
Himmelstrup announce beta-testing of a cabal prototype. Imagine life
without hackage. Today there are 7664 packages all ready to go.

So it is with this ladened awareness that I have volunteered and been
accepted to the open vacancy at HWN.

I seek to alleviate a sorely felt void in the Haskell diaspora by
elucidating the newsworthy.

The first decision I made might catch you by surprise, so let me explain.
You see, Semen Trygubenko has also stepped up to contribute to HWN by
continuing the leaderboard format pioneered by Daniel.

I proposed and he agreed to alternate weeks between HWN Leaderboard and HWN
Light.

I'm excited by this dual format. Lower frequency means longer wavelength,
which also means looking at events from a wider angle. At the same time the
dual format affords continuity from past editions that a readership has
grown accustomed to.

Even though some readers will be mortified by the loss in uniformity, I
trust you won't be among them. I take full responsibility for any
untowardness caused by this to-ing and fro-ing, including innocent kittens
mysteriously vanishing into the night.

The Light edition will come out this Tuesday; the Leaderboard edition next.

Thank you for reading Haskell Weekly News.


>From the desk of Poobah of HWN,
Kim-Ee Yeoh
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