wither the Platform

[Matthias Hörmann]

I can't speak for others but as a regular but enthusiastic Haskell user the
platform always (not just since sandboxes) felt outdated and limited to the
included packages since the rest of the Haskell ecosystem rapidly moved on
after a platform release (or even during its stabilization freeze phase
before a release).

The platform is quite similar to Linux distributions like Debian stable or
RedHat Enterprise Linux in that sense. Running software not in their
repositories on one of those is a bit of a pain and not for the beginner
too, just as running packages outside the HP can be when you start out with
it.

The majority of the Haskell power users (library authors, people interested
in the language development itself,...) on the other hand run Haskell more
like a rolling release Linux distribution, dealing with problems due to
cutting edge versions as they arise which means cutting Hackage versions do
not build on the HP. On the other hand new versions that do compile very
rarely seem to cause major issues, offering little incentive to use older
versions for power users outside enterprise support environments.

Perhaps Haskell does need some kind of multi-tier system as those Linux
distributions use? LTS and Stackage seem to be attempts to do just that.

In any case, I do not think the HP is the best environment for the new
Haskell user.

Perhaps listing the possible types of users and their requirements and
limitations would be helpful to decide what, if anything, should replace
the HP.
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