wither the Platform

[Herbert Valerio Riedel]

On 2015-03-25 at 05:43:13 +0100, Manuel M T Chakravarty wrote:

[...]

>> The most important message for these new users is “always use a
>> sandbox”, because that at least keeps them from destroying the full
>> environment when they allow installations of packages that break
>> other packages, etc. And the platform, to the extent that it changes
>> and complicates build plans, does these users no good.
>
> You are talking about a specific kind of new users. These new users
> want to install a web stack or similar — i.e., they need tons of
> packages. These people may be new to Haskell, but I reckon they are
> otherwise power users.
>
> I’m talking about somebody picking up Learn you a Haskell and wanting
> to write Hello World. 

IMO, that class of users don't need anything beyond the packages bundled
with GHC anyway...

However, LYAH already directs such users to the platform as it states in
its introduction:

| What you need to dive in
| 
| A text editor and a Haskell compiler. You probably already have your
| favorite text editor installed so we won't waste time on that. For the
| purposes of this tutorial we'll be using GHC, the most widely used
| Haskell compiler. 
|
| *The best way to get started is to download the Haskell Platform,*
| which is basically Haskell with batteries included.* 
| [...]

And here's what Bird's "Thinking Functionally with Haskell" has to say
about the HP:

| 1.5 The Haskell Platform
|
| If you visit the site www.haskell.org, you will see how to download
| The Haskell Platform. This is a large collection of tools and packages
| that can be used to run Haskell scripts. The platform comes in three
| versions, one for each of Windows, Mac and Linux. We deal only with
| the Windows version, the others being similar.

So I'm not too worried that newcomers following a guided course/tutorial
(such as LYAH or TFwH) won't be directed to the platform.


Cheers,
  hvr