[Haskell-cafe] When did it become so hard to install Haskell onWindows?

[Simon Thompson]

Jack, a saviour for me is to suggest repl.it … all in the browser, so no installation at all. Beginners can begin with the language and not the installation :-)

Simon

Sent from my iPhone

> On 25 Apr 2020, at 10:17, Jack Kelly <jack at jackkelly.name> wrote:
> 
> I appreciate that these things are standard tools for Windows
> developers, but it's worth noting how much harder it can make things
> for completely new people (either new developers or new to Windows).
> 
> At the start of the year, I prepared install instructions for university
> students who would be using Haskell as part of a first year CS
> course. We needed to use GHC 8.6.5 because certain libraries were not
> available for GHC 8.8.x (their base upper bounds hadn't updated, which
> ruled out haskell-dev), and tried to use Chocolatey as an experiment.
> 
> It was remarkably tough to get students set up on their own machines. I
> was planning on recommending the Haskell Platform installer for Semester
> 2 this year, and am disappointed to find that it no longer exists.
> 
> If it becomes too hard for students to install Haskell on their own
> Windows machines, it may become too hard for us to use Haskell as an
> educational tool, and I'd consider that a tragedy.
> 
> -- Jack
> 
> <lonetiger at gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Hi Pedro,
>> 
>> I’m the maintainer of those chocolatey packages.
>> 
>> ➢ First, I have to subscribe to a newsletter? Really? I guess this is
>> entirely optional, but the instructions don't make it sound so.
>> 
>> Step 1 is completely optional and you don’t have to subscribe to any news letter.
>> 
>> ➢ Then I have to know what powershell.exe is, use an administrative prompt, and enter scary commands in it.
>> 
>> Powershell has been the standard shell in Windows for well over the
>> past decade. Every single script from Microsoft or third parties come
>> with powershell for automation.
>> It’s understandable that you may not know it since your primary
>> platform isn’t Windows. But it’s been included in every single Windows
>> version for the past 13 years.
>> 
>> An administrative prompt is nothing different than running sudo or
>> clicking on that installer that you *assumed* not to be scary because
>> you didn’t see the actions it was performing.
>> That scary looking command is nothing but a curl command allowing the
>> one time execution of a script from a remote source. As in a script
>> that’s not physically on your machine.
>> 
>> So what exactly makes this scary? Is it because
>> 
>> Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force;
>> [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol =
>> [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex
>> ((New-Object
>> System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))
>> 
>> Is more verbose than
>> 
>> curl -sSL https://path.to.some.script/ | sh
>> 
>> or because the technologies used while completely standard on Windows aren’t known to the casual user?
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Tamar
>> 
>> From: José Pedro Magalhães
>> Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2020 04:24
>> To: haskell
>> Subject: [Haskell-cafe] When did it become so hard to install Haskell onWindows?
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I haven't used Haskell in my personal computer in a while. I decided
>> to install it again. I used the Haskell Platform in the past, so I
>> went for that again - and a quick Google search on "install haskell
>> windows" brings up the HP page, so I thought I was on the right track.
>> 
>> At the HP page for Windows, I'm greeted with this:
>> 
>> 
>> In the past I'd just download an installer which would take care of
>> things - now it seems to be more complicated. But fine, I followed the
>> link to configure Chocolatey. That's where it starts getting really
>> scary:
>> 
>> 
>> First, I have to subscribe to a newsletter? Really? I guess this is
>> entirely optional, but the instructions don't make it sound so. Then I
>> have to know what powershell.exe is, use an administrative prompt, and
>> enter scary commands in it.
>> 
>> I gave up at this stage. But going back to the HP page, it appears
>> that even this wouldn't be enough, because I would still need to
>> follow "the instructions at haskellstack.org to install stack". The
>> link to haskellstack.org takes me to a 403 Forbidden.
>> 
>> I honestly don't want this to sound like a rant. I genuinely would
>> like to understand why this multi-step, multi-tool, multi-website
>> process was introduced, how it is superior to a single installer, and
>> whether this is really the process we want newcomers to the language
>> have to follow.
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Pedro
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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