[Haskell-cafe] [Haskell] GHC is a monopoly compiler

[Christopher Allen]

I don't think that's a good idea, given how little agreement there is
on how things should work.

Streaming is a good example here. It's not "obvious" how to do many
things in Haskell that are "obvious" in other languages. Partly
because industry hasn't used languages like Haskell much, partly
because the canvas we work with permits more structure.

On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 8:33 PM, Wizek <123.wizek at gmail.com> wrote:
>> A bit of a tangent to a tangential conversation, but I wish that
>> Haskell could move towards the "batteries included" attitude of
>> Python's standard library.
>
> Although I am not sure a dictatorship would be required -- benevolent or
> otherwise -- but batteries would certainly be welcome in the standard
> libraries.
>
> On 27 September 2016 at 02:25, Michael Sloan <mgsloan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Monopolies directed by benevolent dictators are highly efficient, and
>> often yield results that are highly valuable.  If we are running with
>> this metaphor, I'd agree that GHC and stack could fall into such a
>> category.  For both of these, though, we do not have dictatorship, we
>> just have spiritual leaders (SPJ!! To name one, Simon is certainly a
>> leader, in spirit, for the community).
>>
>> A bit of a tangent to a tangential conversation, but I wish that
>> Haskell could move towards the "batteries included" attitude of
>> Python's standard library.  That is an example of benevolent
>> dictatorship / vertical monopoly going very very well.
>>
>> -Michael
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 3:53 PM, Tom Murphy <amindfv at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > This is not the right mailing list for this
>> > (https://wiki.haskell.org/Mailing_lists) ; forwarding to haskell-cafe@
>> >
>> > Tom
>> >
>> > On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 7:48 AM, Tony Day <tonyday567 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I would argue that the adventure that is GHC is a natural monopoly - an
>> >> example of collaboration trumping competition.  Certainly the results
>> >> speak
>> >> for themselves, and I personally find it the most satisfying, the only
>> >> sane
>> >> way to practice the craft of coding.  So, as an enthusiastic user of a
>> >> monopolistic service (the best power to weight ratio I could find to
>> >> misquote Kmett), I would like to suggest to the community that we have
>> >> a
>> >> respectful discussion on the implications of natural monopolies.
>> >>
>> >> Monopolies have their problems.  They create power imbalances that need
>> >> active management to control.  A community should be particularly wary
>> >> of
>> >> monopolies attempting to vertically integrate up the production chain
>> >> into
>> >> areas where a monopoly makes less sense.  I would call the whole cabal
>> >> versus stack drama a text-book case of over-reach. Everyone agrees
>> >> stack
>> >> operates at a higher level of abstraction then cabal, on top of it is
>> >> accurate.  Cabal shouldn't even be allowed to compete above it's
>> >> current
>> >> abstraction point.
>> >>
>> >> Haddock is another example of being blessed by ghc.  It hits a
>> >> corner-case
>> >> of perfection for the "I'm a hackage library" monopoly.  But the
>> >> outside
>> >> world of documentation, editing, rendering and conversion is invisible
>> >> to
>> >> this monopolistic use case. We are forced to learn and use haddock,
>> >> and, for
>> >> those of us with documentation needs outside hackage, the resultant
>> >> workflow
>> >> is cruel and unusual.
>> >>
>> >> GHC is a great compiler, but should actively be discouraged from
>> >> monopolizing the associated tooling and documentation chains.  There is
>> >> evidence of healthy open-source competition and significant gains to be
>> >> had,
>> >> and Haskell runs the risk of missing out.
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >> Haskell at haskell.org
>> >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell
>> >>
>> >
>> >
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>
>
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-- 
Chris Allen
Currently working on http://haskellbook.com