Haskell Libraries Wishlist

[Graham Klyne]

At 21:35 17/10/04 -0400, Isaac Jones wrote:
> > (a) The current haskell.org/libraries/ page.
> >   Pros: we have got it
> >   Cons: developers cannot alter it themselves; we know it doesn't work
>
>This begs the question of _why_ it doesn't work.  All developers, or
>anyone else, has to do is email the page maintainers and they are
>pretty responsive in getting stuff onto the page.  The fact that
>developers don't do this makes me think that the freshmeat solution
>(c) won't work.  Just a guess.

Hmmm... I wasn't really aware of this (though it's stated clearly enough if 
I actually read the page), which may be part of why "developers don't do 
this".  Also, libraries tend to start out tentative, and evolve to 
something that we'd be happy to see offered as an "official" library.  (I 
recognize that designation is not quite right, but I think there's a sense 
of having a community imprimatur for libraries listed at 
http://www.haskell.org/libraries/ .)

Which leads me to the idea that a well-publicized Wiki for individual 
submissions linked to (say) an email or RSS feed that alerts the library 
page maintainer(s) who make a judgement whether or not a library is ready 
for more substantial acknowledgement.  I suppose it's like the difference 
between a personal rambling and a peer-reviewed paper?

>I think a static page, maintained with someone with both ears to the
>ground and a lot of interest and curiosity (did someone mention Shae?)
>makes the most sense, except for the poor soul who has to run out
>there and collect, collate, and maintain the information himself.

I think the advantage of starting with a Wiki is:
(1) it creates a natural collecting point for candidate libraries, without 
forcing the need for one person to track them down, and
(2) it proviodes the page maintainer with some developer-supplied text to 
work with.

...

As a random developer, I find it's easy to overlook the community 
administration aspects that actually make things happen.  To the extent 
that the Haskell community really benefits from the development of new 
library code, maybe a link on the Haskell.org home page for library 
developers, setting out their options for publicizing their work.

...

In writing the above, I've ignored the role of Cabal, which I'm sure will 
be important.  A simple case, 1-page howto create a simple Cabal package 
might help here (the proposal is a little bit daunting for a developer in a 
rush).  At some stage I plan to try and package some of my work with Cabal, 
and might just have a go at doing just that (assuming noone else has beaten 
me to it).

#g


------------
Graham Klyne
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