[Haskell-cafe] Batteries included (Was: GHC is a monopoly compiler)

[Tillmann Rendel]

Hi,

Theodore Lief Gannon wrote:
> There's only one top-level installation involved (stack), and no
> conditional branches on the process, so I'd say it's hit "trivial with
> step-by-step instructions" at least. I just failed to write them. ;)

Ok, good point. Hopefully my experiments can lead to a more complete 
instruction being put somewhere.

In my experience, many programming beginners on Windows cannot use the 
command line at all, so the whole situation of using stack is new to 
them. Also, the default support for copy-and-paste for the Windows 
command line is so bad that beginners will probably try to follow the 
step-by-step instructions by typing out the commands letter by letter. 
Therefore, a long list of simple commands but somewhat cryptic commands 
is still not really "trivial".

So I think my question is: Could stack be persuaded somehow to make 
`stack install gtk3` "just work" by doing all the necessary 
incantations? I'm aware why `cabal install gtk3` can neither install 
gtk2hs-buildtools nor install the C library, but maybe stack could make 
a different tradeoff there.

   Tillmann