[Haskell-cafe] Haskell Platform

[Gershom B]

I’m hoping to release a new platform either tonight or tomorrow.

We delayed the release of the platform more than usual after the GHC release for two reasons. First: we wanted to wait for a new cabal-install release, which is now out, and provides integration with the experimental “backpack” module system in the new GHC. Second: We ran into what seems to be a serious bug in GHC 8.2.1 on win32 platforms, and wanted to see if it could be resolved quickly. [1] The current plan is to just only provide a 64 bit windows release for 8.2.1 as we don’t believe the 32 bit release is stable at this time.

In general, we continue to support the platform, and aim for releases within a few weeks of GHC releases, or sooner. And from download statistics, while I can’t judge them comparitively, it still seems to be widely downloaded and installed, especially on windows systems. There are certainly other choices, and I don’t think there is any “communitywide” consensus across different userbases (be they commercial, of various sorts, educational, etc.), but we on the platform team definitely are continuing to support it, and hopefully improve its quality over time.

As for cabal — the team can speak to that better than I. But there’s certainly a great deal of support and active development going on at the moment (witness the new backpack support in cabal-install 2.0 for example), and the team working on it seems to have acquired some steady momentum. It also remains widely used by all accounts.

Best,
Gershom

[1]: https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/14081 


On August 23, 2017 at 5:34:41 PM, Stuart A. Kurtz (stuart at cs.uchicago.edu) wrote:
> Dear Colleagues,
>  
> What's the status of the Haskell Platform? Is it still the/a preferred way to install  
> a working Haskell system? What is the update status of the Platform? [I note that the platform  
> is at 8.0.2, whereas GHC is at 8.2.1, so I'm really asking if there's a roadmap/timeline  
> for updates.]
>  
> I write because I teach an introductory class in Haskell, and we've long used the Platform  
> as a way to get the system up and running on the student's systems. I'm at a quarter school,  
> but I have to think this is a sharp question for anyone trying to teach a Haskell course  
> at a semester school.
>  
> Is the Platform still the best way to do this? Will cabal continue to be a reasonable choice  
> as default package manager?
>  
> Thank you for your consideration.
>  
> Peace,
>  
> Stu
>  
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