On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 12:34, Andrew Coppin
Today I uploaded a package to Hackage, and rediscovered something that you already know: I'm an idiot.
More specifically, I copied the Cabal description from another package and then updated all the fields. Except that I forgot to update one. And now I have a package which I've erroneously placed in completely the wrong category.
Don't worry; of all the various ways to screw up a Hackage upload, setting the wrong category is just about the least important. Wait until you've got a few dozen packages in the air, and your hair will turn grey ;)
Is there any danger that at some point in the future, it might be possible to edit a package /after/ it has been released on Hackage? There are several reasons why you might wish to do this (beyond realising you did something wrong five minutes after hitting the upload button):
Sadly, the current Hackage maintainers follow the "immutability is good" school of design. A few aspects of packages can be modified, but most (those contained in the .cabal file) cannot.
The maintainer might change. The homepage might move.
Both of these are handled by uploading a package with a _._._.Z version number; in general, package version numbers are: X.X.Y.Z X.X - the package's major version. Bump this when there's a backwards-incompatible change (eg, dependent packages might break) Y - minor version. Bump this when the package changes, but in a backwards-compatible way. Z - patch version. Bump this when you just change something that doesn't affect the code itself (comments, documentation, cabal properties)
A better package might come along, making the existing one obsolete.
The only way to mark packages as obsolete, as far as I know, is to email a Hackage administrator.
Or you might want to stick a message on the package saying "hey, this version has a serious bug, please use the next version up instead!"
This would be useful; maybe a feature for Hackage 2?