[Haskell-community] Request for comment: New haskell.org download page

[Boespflug, Mathieu]

Hi John,

this is a nice summary of all options. May I suggest the following
refinements to the summaries:

"
There are three widely used ways to install the Haskell toolchain on
supported platforms. Currently these are:

* Minimal installers: install just GHC (the compiler) in a global
location on your system, using your system's package manager. (On
Windows and OS X, also installs build tools.)
* Stack: nothing is installed globally, except the stack command.
Stack is a project-centric build tool that will automatically download
and manage compiler and library versions locally on a project by
project basis.
* Haskell Platform: installs all of GHC (the compiler), cabal-install
(a build tool),  misc tools and a starter set of libraries in a global
location on your system.

If you opt for the minimal installer option for your platform, you'll
likely still need to install one or more build tools (cabal-install or
stack) separately.
"

The important point is that these options only differ in what gets
installed globally, as opposed to (semantically speaking)
locally-within-your-project (stack, cabal-install+sandboxes) or
locally-within-your-homedir (cabal-install sans sandboxes). There
ought be a paragraph somewhere near the top discussing upfront the
tradeoffs, which include:

* globally installed resources are conveniently and straightforwardly
available to all users, and need only be downloaded once for all
users. But,
* globally installed resources are inflexible: it's hard to have
multiple versions installed simultaneously, _because conflicts tend to
arise_. This is particularly bad in the case of globally installed
libraries.

I think this paragraph should specifically mention the problems
related to HP as it stands today. That paragraph can be removed once
the HP no longer installs libraries globally.

In my mind, it doesn't really matter what order things are in, from
the moment that the main differentiators of each option are crisply
and clearly defined. That said, the rationale behind the order above
is:

* minimal first, because that's what people normally expect (get the
compiler, no bells and whistles).
* HP last, because unless you're a student and the instructor
specifically told you to download the HP, chances are you're going to
run into trouble with this option (will change in the future, at which
point we'll just have HP + minimal anyways).

Any other order should work just as well.



On 24 September 2015 at 07:20, John Wiegley <johnw at newartisans.com> wrote:
> As mentioned earlier, I've been working on a draft version of the new Haskell
> download page in consultation with Simon PJ, Michael Snoyman, and Gershom
> Bazerman. The goal has been twofold:
>
>   a) add stack as an explicit option, and
>
>   b) add text to each option indicating clearly what it provides and where to
>      get further help, so users can understand the options and make an
>      informed choice.
>
> We've sought to keep the text factual, rather than imply that one option is
> "best" for any particular class of user, since opinions vary so widely on this
> point.
>
> At the following link, you'll find a draft version of the new page for
> comment:
>
>     https://gist.github.com/jwiegley/153d968ddfc9046ee4c9
>
> Hopefully it can go live on haskell.org next week, so please contribute your
> edits here, or by pull request. The goal is to explain each option so that
> people can make an informed decision.
>
> However, the order of presentation does imply that whatever comes first is
> "preferred" even if that is not the intent. The order currently given is HP,
> Stack, Minimal. Chris has already made a few points about changing this order,
> so let's continue that discussion and see where it leads us.
>
> Bear in mind that this is (hopefully) only an interim state. The plan is to
> add Stack to the Platform, and render the Platform minimal, which will
> consolidate this page down to a single, recommended download path.
>
> At the bottom of the gist are incomplete sections on third party libraries and
> alternate installation approaches. These have yet to be written. The hope is
> to resolve the top content first and sort the rest out after; however, ideas
> for that content is most welcome too.
>
> Thank you,
>   John Wiegley
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