[Haskell] Making Haskell more open

[Wolfgang Jeltsch]

Am Sonntag, 13. November 2005 20:29 schrieb Sven Panne:
> [...]

> As I'm guilty of kicking out the old SGML stuff and introducing DocBook
> XML, I'd like to add two remarks:
>
>  * DocBook XML can be transformed into a very rich collection of output
> formats: XHTML, HTML Help, DVI, PS, PDF, FO, plain text, etc. etc.

Very right.

>  * But what's more important: Compared to the more exotic markup mechanisms
> proposed, it is well-known and extremely well documented. There are tons of
> web sites, books, articles, etc. etc. about DocBook XML. Proposing more
> arcane technologies will drastically reduce the amount of people actually
> contributing to an Open Source project, a fact which is easily overlooked.
> (On a related note, this is one of my major concerns about the introduction
> of darcs, but I'll be happy if I'm proven wrong...)

So then, let's stop using Haskell. :-)  Honestly, caring too much about how 
much a certain "technology" is known and used will kill innovation.  If 
something new is really better than what's already there then I want to 
consider its adoption.  Compatibilty, support and the like is also important 
but it shouldn't be overrated.  I don't like it when creativity and true 
innovation is hindered too much by pragmatic arguments.

Nevertheless, I could imagine that DocBook XML does a better job for the GHC 
documentation than the other things proposed.

> Cheers,
>    S.

Best wishes,
Wolfgang