Cabal and installing packages.

[Isaac Jones]

"Simon Marlow" <simonmar at microsoft.com> writes:

> On 03 December 2004 17:10, Keean Schupke wrote:
>
>> I find that even on package managed systems I use CPAN to install perl
>> modules... I would have thought a nice central repository on
>> haskell.org (with mirrors of course) where users can contibute their
>> packages, that would be built into a Haskell package tool would be
>> useful even for systems where there is package management.
>> 
>> I find that debian/gentoo etc do not have all the packages available
>> for say perl, and it is nice to have a consistant interface on any
>> platform...
>
> I'm arguing for a consistent interface for all packages (not just
> Haskell) on any given platform, whereas you're arguing for a consistent
> interface for Haskell packages across platforms.  
>
> There are advantages to both approaches of course, so ideally we'd have
> both.  

Indeed it has always been the plan to have both:
http://www.haskell.org/cabal/proposal/a818.html

And the program to generate a Debian package from a Cabal package is
already implemented and in use (thanks, John Goerzen!)

Of course, the client isn't the hard part, the server / database is,
and that's under way, but it's just a prototype now:

http://www.scannedinavian.org/cgi-bin/hackage/hackage

peace,

  isaac