Re: [arch-haskell] How to determine whether a package is in or out in [haskell]?

On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 07:07:26PM -0800, Leif Warner wrote:

On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 1:07 PM, Magnus Therning wrote:

...

Now we have 300+ packages in [haskell]. It's starting to be a large set, and the time required to build when something changes is starting to really be felt now. So I would like to start a discussion on how we should decide what criteria to use when adding a package, and equally important, what criteria to use when dropping a package.

My _impression_ is that additions have been a bit willy-nilly. Guided only by what the maintainers fancy at the moment. I also don't think that we've ever dropped a package, ever.

I feel it's important to me to know that the resources I put into ArchHaskell is appreciated, and every added package increases the resources required. I therefore would like to know that each and ever package in [haskell] is there for a good reason.

I feel I need to bring this up because there are a few packages in [haskell] that I suspect are there, but aren't widely used. To point fingers, the chief reason is Agda :) This is a package that has a mere 13 votes in AUR, and it takes more than an hour to build it on my laptop (about 70 minutes to be more precise). On each platform!

FWIW, I could help out with builds these days, if need be. My work equipment is a new 4-core (8 w/ HT) machine w/ 8 GB RAM + SSD drive.

It would be excellent if more people could work on keeping [haskell] up-to-date :) However, splitting updating the database and the building of packages is likely to be a bit painful. So far my experience is that updating packages to a buildable state often requires a few iterations of modifying patch files and attempting builds. If each such iteration requires communication it's likely to drag out quite a bit. The ideal would be a build server really. /M -- Magnus Therning OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4 email: magnus@therning.org jabber: magnus@therning.org twitter: magthe http://therning.org/magnus I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind. -- Alan Kay