FW: Library infrastructure

[Shae Matijs Erisson]

"Simon Peyton-Jones" <simonpj@microsoft.com> writes:

> Languages flourish when libraries are plentiful, reliable, and well
> documented.  In an open-source community like the Haskell community,
> plentiful libraries depend on contributions from the community.  
>
> 	The difficulty is that it is currently not obvious what Joe
>   Programmer should do to contribute a library to the community.
>
> 	I think this difficulty is a major obstacle to Haskell's
>   progress, perhaps even the largest single obstacle today.

http://sf.net/projects/haskell-libs/ was created as a place to create, collect and
maintain explicitly licensed Open Source libraries for/in Haskell.

haskell-libs now has:
* irc 'bot ( lambdabot )
* web server with plugins ( hws-wp, derivative of Simon Marlow's hws )
* crypto modules ( Blowfish, RC4, TEA, ISAAC, crc32 )
* rfc2822 parser
* rudimentary maildir search engine (lambdabot plugin)
* rudimentary bayesian spam filter
* chess game
* brainfuck interpreter

I'd be happy to add haskell developers to the haskell-libs project, just email
me or talk to me on the #haskell irc channel.

> The lack of this library-building infrastructure is a serious problem.
> Solving it, or even partially solving it, would be a huge step forward.
> So this message is really to try to kick-start the process again.  Is
> anyone willing to invest effort in making this happen?  

> Perhaps the first thing to do is to assemble list of people who would be
> willing to contribute as supporters (in the above sense), hoping that a
> Czar may then emerge by popular acclaim.  Would you like to reply,
> perhaps to the 'libraries@haskell.org' list, so indicate interest.
>
> 	I really think this is important.  If we do not collectively evolve a way
> to develop libraries in "bazaar" mode, I think Haskell will at best develop
> more slowly, and at worst wither away.

I agree with this, and I'd like to contribute.

PS. does anyone know how to contact Jan Skibinski from numeric-quest.com? Jan's
haskell sources don't have a license, and I'd like to add them to the
haskell-libs CVS tree.
-- 
Shae Matijs Erisson - 2 days older than RFC0226
#haskell on irc.freenode.net - We Put the Funk in Funktion
10 PRINT "HELLO" 20 GOTO 10 ; putStr $ fix ("HELLO\n"++)