Re: Haskell Support on Windows (Simon Peyton Jones)

Hey roman!
If you get stuck getting ghc to build on windows, please ask for help on
the ghc mailing lists and/or on the #ghc channel on freenode.
Just having more folks that regularly try to build and use ghc on windows
would be huge.
There's also countless ways to contrib To ghc too.
On Tuesday, April 1, 2014, Roman Kuznetsov
Hello,
-- sorry for incomplete email - typing from mobile is not easy :)
I would like to participate in GHC on Windows. But I am a normal windows developer and don't know much of that rather weird (to me) tool chain used in this case. I frankly tried a few times before - every time with the same result - I never get to the point, but trying to understand just how to build it. I know there is a wiki, etc.
But my question (and the reason I write here): is it possible to have some kind of mini-course, a crush-course on developing GHC on Windows (as well as on other platforms) - video course ... this is what comes to mind after all these Coursera, Pluralsight, etc.
You could say - there is a wiki. But that's not enough. Maybe it's just me... I will take another analogy. Even though I'm coding for Windows primarily, I am a linux user. So, I switched from Ubuntu to Arch Linux recently which was possible due to the quality of their wiki documentation (Arch is known to not be as user friendly as *buntu like systems).
Sorry for not referring to any concrete problems, I just tried stating what I think didn't let me start working with that.
/Roman
On 01 апр. 2014 г., at 15:26, "Carter Schonwald" < carter.schonwald@gmail.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','carter.schonwald@gmail.com');> wrote:
Kyle, we need you to help us with windows support! :-)
On Tuesday, April 1, 2014, Simon Peyton Jones
javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','simonpj@microsoft.com');> wrote: A couple of poor assumptions are made here.
I’m not sure where “here” is. In my email I specifically said exactly what you are saying (only I was not as eloquent as you).
What we need is some developers who are willing to give some love and support to the Windows version of GHC. And *they* really are thin on the ground, unfortunately.
Simon
*From:* ghc-devs [mailto:ghc-devs-bounces@haskell.org] *On Behalf Of *Kyle Van Berendonck *Sent:* 01 April 2014 13:54 *To:* ghc-devs@haskell.org *Subject:* Re: Haskell Support on Windows (Simon Peyton Jones)
A couple of poor assumptions are made here.
The first is that the userbase of GHC on Windows is poor. This is false. In fact, the poor state of Windows is mentioned on #haskell more frequently as of late. In the last week I've talked almost every day to (different) people who have had Windows woes with using GHC. The hacker-base isn't here at the moment - I agree, but the user-base most certainly is. Could this be a problem with the demographic, or could it just be that Windows development isn't inviting? The build system and default test failures in-particular are a source of discouragement.
The second assumption is that GHC/Haskell will be worth a dime in the RealWorld without Windows as a primary tier platform. I'm going to put a crude guess that given the overwhelming magnitude of C#/F# coming up on my local careers portal that there's far more industry on Windows than on OSX or Linux. Those are all the businesses where the probability that they will ever touch Haskell goes from `probably not right now` to `impossible`. Let me also remind you that Windows still holds 89.2% of operating system market share ie the people that hackers and developers actually have to deploy their applications to.
Sorry to sound fumey, but there's all this suggesting that everyone would have a better day if we dropped Windows (let's be honest, if it wasn't a primary tier platform nobody would have fixed it for 7.8), but I doubt few of the people who think it's a "great idea" or sslt have actually thought through whether it's the best thing for Haskell or just the best thing to get 7.8 into their hands a couple weeks sooner.
Regards.
_______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list ghc-devs@haskell.orgjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','ghc-devs@haskell.org'); http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs
_______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list ghc-devs@haskell.orgjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','ghc-devs@haskell.org'); http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs

I could try with building GHC on Windows as a cross-compiler for ARM if
there is someone to help with building GHC.
2014-04-01 16:45 GMT+03:00 Carter Schonwald
Hey roman! If you get stuck getting ghc to build on windows, please ask for help on the ghc mailing lists and/or on the #ghc channel on freenode. Just having more folks that regularly try to build and use ghc on windows would be huge. There's also countless ways to contrib To ghc too.
On Tuesday, April 1, 2014, Roman Kuznetsov
wrote: Hello,
-- sorry for incomplete email - typing from mobile is not easy :)
I would like to participate in GHC on Windows. But I am a normal windows developer and don't know much of that rather weird (to me) tool chain used in this case. I frankly tried a few times before - every time with the same result - I never get to the point, but trying to understand just how to build it. I know there is a wiki, etc.
But my question (and the reason I write here): is it possible to have some kind of mini-course, a crush-course on developing GHC on Windows (as well as on other platforms) - video course ... this is what comes to mind after all these Coursera, Pluralsight, etc.
You could say - there is a wiki. But that's not enough. Maybe it's just me... I will take another analogy. Even though I'm coding for Windows primarily, I am a linux user. So, I switched from Ubuntu to Arch Linux recently which was possible due to the quality of their wiki documentation (Arch is known to not be as user friendly as *buntu like systems).
Sorry for not referring to any concrete problems, I just tried stating what I think didn't let me start working with that.
/Roman
On 01 апр. 2014 г., at 15:26, "Carter Schonwald" < carter.schonwald@gmail.com> wrote:
Kyle, we need you to help us with windows support! :-)
On Tuesday, April 1, 2014, Simon Peyton Jones
wrote: A couple of poor assumptions are made here.
I’m not sure where “here” is. In my email I specifically said exactly what you are saying (only I was not as eloquent as you).
What we need is some developers who are willing to give some love and support to the Windows version of GHC. And *they* really are thin on the ground, unfortunately.
Simon
*From:* ghc-devs [mailto:ghc-devs-bounces@haskell.org] *On Behalf Of *Kyle Van Berendonck *Sent:* 01 April 2014 13:54 *To:* ghc-devs@haskell.org *Subject:* Re: Haskell Support on Windows (Simon Peyton Jones)
A couple of poor assumptions are made here.
The first is that the userbase of GHC on Windows is poor. This is false. In fact, the poor state of Windows is mentioned on #haskell more frequently as of late. In the last week I've talked almost every day to (different) people who have had Windows woes with using GHC. The hacker-base isn't here at the moment - I agree, but the user-base most certainly is. Could this be a problem with the demographic, or could it just be that Windows development isn't inviting? The build system and default test failures in-particular are a source of discouragement.
The second assumption is that GHC/Haskell will be worth a dime in the RealWorld without Windows as a primary tier platform. I'm going to put a crude guess that given the overwhelming magnitude of C#/F# coming up on my local careers portal that there's far more industry on Windows than on OSX or Linux. Those are all the businesses where the probability that they will ever touch Haskell goes from `probably not right now` to `impossible`. Let me also remind you that Windows still holds 89.2% of operating system market share ie the people that hackers and developers actually have to deploy their applications to.
Sorry to sound fumey, but there's all this suggesting that everyone would have a better day if we dropped Windows (let's be honest, if it wasn't a primary tier platform nobody would have fixed it for 7.8), but I doubt few of the people who think it's a "great idea" or sslt have actually thought through whether it's the best thing for Haskell or just the best thing to get 7.8 into their hands a couple weeks sooner.
Regards.
_______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list ghc-devs@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs
_______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list ghc-devs@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs
_______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list ghc-devs@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs
participants (2)
-
Carter Schonwald
-
eng. Vassil Ognyanov Keremidchiev