Hello, Thank you for the reply!
Let us know what you think would have helped you. I'd be happy to try to help.
[reply inline]
On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 4:35 AM, Duncan Coutts
On Wed, 2010-05-19 at 01:45 -0400, Mats Ahlgren wrote:
I've installed Cabal once in the past with no trouble. However I can no longer do so.
I tried to install Cabal on a new computer: - I visited http://www.haskell.org/cabal/download.html and got the latest version - I followed the directions in the README file - No error messages were thrown, the process was "successful" and I now have a ~/.cabal directory --but-- it doesn't seem as if I have a 'cabal' command in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin or even anywhere in the ~/.cabal directory.
Ah, I'm guessing you downloaded the Cabal library package, rather than the cabal-install command line package.
That's probably the case. I googled for [Haskell Cabal] and ended up at at a page where the only download link was http://www.haskell.org/cabal/download.html . Unfortunately the first link I found was the "Cabal library" and not the "cabal-install tool". You may wish to have something like: * Section: Installing Cabal There are two Cabals, one is the library and one is the package manager tool you can run as "cabal" from the command-line, which is called <i>cabal-install</i>. You probably want cabal-install. * Subsection: Cabal-install For guaranteed current instructions, visit [link to trac]. * Otherwise, go to http://www.haskell.org/cabal/release/?C=M;O=A and download the latest "cabal-install" package. ** * Subsection: Cabal library <b>Warning</b>: You <b>only</b> need this under [circumstances]. It is used for [...]. *** * It might be prudent to (as above) remove the cabal-install section and redirect to http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/wiki/CabalInstall , where the installation instructions are up-to-date. ** Note that this url is *different* than the one on Trac. Furthermore the URL has both cabal and cabal-install in the same directory. *** If this library is only used for internal development, consider perhaps moving it to a different page or perhaps renaming it cabal-devel? Please consider encouraging Linux distro package-maintainers to bundle cabal-install with ghc, or at least provide a package. I'm a bit confused: I am somewhat under the impression that cabal-install is just cabal+[cabal-install command]? If so, wouldn't it be simpler to just distribute the bundled cabal-install+library? (There are probably good reasons at work here that I'm not aware of, just thought I'd mention it.)
The README for the latter involves running the ./bootstrap.sh which is included in the cabal-install-x.y.tar.gz package.
The README for the Cabal library mentions at the top that there is also the cabal-install package. Perhaps that notice needs to be clearer. Maybe the download page needs to be clearer too.
Let us know what you think would have helped you.
I'm certain now I didn't download the cabal-install package. Upon rereading the README in the cabal(library) package http://darcs.haskell.org/cabal/README , I do indeed notice the warning at the top. Despite being at the top, people are probably looking in the readme for the instructions on how to set up Cabal, and usually are desensitized to informational preambles. If you do indeed want a warning (which you perhaps do) I would humbly recommend: The Cabal library package ========================= Home page: http://www.haskell.org/cabal/ N O T I C E ========================= If you also want the `cabal` command line program then you need the `cabal-install` package in addition to this library. Installation instructions for the Cabal library =============================================== Installing as a user (no root or administer access) --------------------------------------------------- read notice above ghc --make Setup ./Setup configure --user ./Setup build ./Setup install Installing as root / Administrator ---------------------------------- read notice above ghc --make Setup ./Setup configure ./Setup build sudo ./Setup install Compiling Setup rather than using `runghc Setup` is much faster and works on Windows. For all packages other than Cabal itself it is fine to use `runghc`. This will install into `/usr/local` on unix and on Windows it will install into `$ProgramFiles/Haskell`. If you want to install elsewhere use the `--prefix=` flag at the configure step.
- There was no extra information in the README file; no examples of how to proceed or sample usage - I then followed the directions to view the user docs online. After locating them, it seems there are no instructions for end-users, just for people who wish to submit packages. - I then looked at http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/wiki/CabalInstall and noticed there was another way to do this -- with a ./bootstrap.sh -- but this file is missing in the latest version.
I'm guessing you're still looking at the Cabal library package which indeed has no bootstrap, it's the cabal-install package which has that.
Indeed, please ignore anything I said here. =)
The end result is that even after 2 hours, I am unable to figure out why Cabal is not working. If I was a new user, I wouldn't even know what Cabal does.
I attempted to file a bug, but then saw I was unable to because the Trac installation is protected with basic http authentication.
It gives the guest account username and password on the main front page of the trac.
In my humble opinion, important pieces of information should be found very close to the place they're needed (relatively close to anything which might be confusing). For example, the knowledge that there existed a cabal-install vs. a normal cabal package, or the warning in the README file. Furthermore, I think this breaks people's normal expectations if they've seen Trac before and are used to making a new account. It seems that the only reason this username and password exists is to prevent spam from untargetted botnet attacks? If so, it may be a bit ironic, but there is no reason not to put it as a message in the HTTP auth popup. e.g. The username/password is guest/haskell (more info on front page). Username: ________ Password: ________
I write this out of concern, because these issues with documentation (and what may be a critical bug) may make people shy away from Haskell as a platform. Also if anyone might have insight into how to fix this, it would be much appreciated; thank you.
Thanks for your report. I'd welcome your suggestions on what bits of documentation should be clarified. It's not always obvious to us since we're too familiar with it all.
One thing that's particularly confusing is simply the package naming. The original package was simply called "Cabal" and then later when we added a separate command line program we had to give that a different name. The plan in future is to reorganise the packages a bit and we'll take the opportunity to call the main user package simply "cabal".
I think that would help a lot -- perhaps even more if it was integrated with GHC and other distributions so an installation is not necessary. sidenote 1: Mention of Cabal could be included in popular Haskell tutorials. This might help in terms of "discoverability". sidenote 2: Today I downloaded cabal-install from hackage, per the instructions on the front page of trac. You may wish to nuke the ~/.cabal and ~/.ghc directories before an install (warning/prompting the user and telling them a backup is being made). Attempting to ./bootstrap.sh while those directories existed resulted in a corrupt install. Mainly it was the ~/.ghc directory that was problematic. (sub-sidenote: I was given instructions to run ghc-pkg -v check without knowing why I was running the command. Furthermore, the -v flag does not exist.) sidenote 3: I might further suggest that the haskell-devel-moderator/admin/? email address be listened to; alternatively (in case it is full of spam like most mailman addresses are) perhaps the "your message has bounced" mail could read "Please click the link sent in your registration mail and follow the instructions on the page. You will be required to [...]. Wait until the final confirmation page has loaded. If this fails, please try re-registering." Sorry, that probably sounds like an incredibly silly suggestion and should not be implemented. It's just that I've registered on mailman lists so many times I must have either overlooked that, or closed the tab after confirming (before the final confirmation http request could be sent). This is a major usability bug in Mailman (error messages which tell you you are wrong, not why you are wrong, nor how to fix it) and unrelated to Cabal in any way.
Duncan
Thanks. Hope this helps, Mats