Haskell Platform web page could be more informative

[David Menendez]

On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 12:57 AM, Don Stewart <dons at galois.com> wrote:

> Answers to many of these things are here,
>
>    http://trac.haskell.org/haskell-platform/

The only way to reach this page from the main Platform page is to
follow one of the links labeled "Platform Bug Tracker". I suggest that
non-expert users are unlikely to do this when attempting to find
information about upcoming releases.

Also, the information here is frequently outdated or incomplete.

> Including release schedules:
>
>    http://trac.haskell.org/haskell-platform/wiki/ReleaseTimetable

This page states that major releases happen every six months, and then
later states that major releases happen every four months.

It also states that the 2009.4 release is scheduled for September 2009
and, since it hasn't been updated since August, says that the content
hasn't yet been decided.

> We have a new page planned:
>
>    http://trac.haskell.org/haskell-platform/ticket/20
>
> Suggestions on how best to encorporate more detailed info like this into
> a user page would be welcome.

There should be a page, linked from the main page, which lists both
the general schedule (i.e., major release every X months, minor
release every Y months) and lists the known upcoming releases with
their scheduled release dates. Once information is known about what
packages will be included in the release, it should be available here
or reachable from here.

Each page for past releases should indicate when the release was
published and what has changed since the previous release. E.g., the
2009.2.0.2 release would say that GHC was bumped to 6.10.4 from 6.10.3
and that the network package was upgraded to 2.2.1.4 from 2.2.1.1 and
provide links to the release notes for GHC 6.10.4 and network-2.2.1.4.

The contacts section should mention either the libraries,
haskell-cafe, or haskell-platform mailing lists, whichever is the best
for user-level queries (i.e., not questions from Platform developers).

-- 
Dave Menendez <dave at zednenem.com>
<http://www.eyrie.org/~zednenem/>