[Haskell-community] [Haskell-cafe] technical thoughts on stack

[Harendra Kumar]

On 15 September 2016 at 19:53, Edward Z. Yang <ezyang at mit.edu> wrote:

>
> Well, if the "snapshot" config is put in specific file, there's no
> reason why Cabal couldn't be taught to also read configuration from that
> file.  But if cabal-install wants it to be in "pkg description format"
> and Stack wants it to be in YAML I'm not sure how you are going to get
> the projects to agree on a shared format.  Snapshot config is put
> in cabal.project.freeze, which has the virtue of having the *same*
> format of cabal.project.


How about cabal-install using the YAML format as hpack has proven that it
works very well for expressing the existing .cabal files? YAML is simple,
flexible and open, used across many tools so the knowledge of format is
more widely sharable which has its advantages. Are there reasons to keep
using the cabal format other than the legacy reasons and the pain of asking
everyone to move to another format?

In the short run it is tempting to keep using .cabal since we do not have
to manage a painful disruptive change. But that may not be so in the long
run. Open technologies usually win in the long run as against the closed
ones. Keeping aside the legacy knowledge advantage, we can objectively
evaluate if .cabal is better than YAML or vice versa.

Inputs from original stack authors might also be useful on why they chose
YAML over .cabal. I guess it might be similar to the reasons why someone
wrote hpack to generate .cabal from YAML. Also they were starting fresh and
so did not have to manage a disruptive change. But I fear if they will be
willing to go for a closed format against an open format now even if some
of the problems of the format are addressed. Maintaining a closed format
perennially is also an issue unless it is very well thought out and does
not require any changes.

-harendra
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