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

[Anthony Clayden]

> I think the comments regarding users' proficiency with Chocolatey or PowerShell or whatever are beside the point. The truth is that *nobody* expects that anyone would need to be familiar with those tools in order to install software on Windows. As an example of what I'm talking about, consider Microsoft Visual Studio. This is a big, complex piece of software. And, obviously, it's an application that's used by software developers, rather than ordinary end users. During installation, it runs multiple PowerShell and Cmd scripts, and, for all I know, uses Chocolatey under the hood as well. The point is, I don't have to care about any of that. I install it the same way I install any other software in Windows: I click a few buttons and make a few checkbox selections, and it just runs*.

Indeed, my experience too. Furthermore MSVC/Visual Studio upgraded the
source distro 'Solution' for Hugs/WinHugs from 2006; and I could go
ahead and build that with less than a dozen patches to bitrotted code
and config. No sight of a command line needed. In comparison, building
the Unixy bits was a nightmare. (And I think little of that was
Windows-specific or mixed-platform specific.)

> I understand perfectly well the issue with resource constraints preventing the creation of a better experience for Windows users. ...

I don't understand. SLPJ is at *Microsoft*; his homepage is at
*Microsoft*; his email address is *@Microsoft*. It's ironic that half
of the threads Simon starts on ghc-devs relate to crashes/failed
builds on *Windows*.

And here we are (not for the first time) using up disproportionate
airspace on Windows.

I appreciate the sponsorship (in effect) the GHC community gets from
Microsoft. Could their help provide a little more practical benefit?:
there are surely Microsofters who know the tools and have the skills
to deliver a few-clicks installer for GHC(?)


> And I think it's safe to assume that Microsoft has a few more resources at its disposal to support this than the Haskell community does. So you just need to be honest about it, and state up front that there isn't a simple, seamless way to install the Haskell Platform in Windows at this time, but if you want to install it anyway, here's what you need to do.


AntC
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/attachments/20200429/43f6c83c/attachment.html>