Malcolm Wallace
The platform installer is supposed to erase previous platform editions before it installs itself.
I would consider that a serious bug.
"Lacking a feature I would consider essential" /= "a bug" in my opinion, especially when the desirability of the feature is in question.
It is not merely that a feature is lacking. Removing software from my machine without my knowledge or permission is just wrong. (I was bitten by this once before, with a ghc installer for Mac. It removed the previous working ghc, without telling me. Then I discovered that a library I needed could not be compiled by the new version of ghc. The old ghc installer then refused to delete the new ghc and revert to the old one, because it could not imagine why anyone would want to "downgrade".)
I get where you're coming from, however: almost every binary installer
on every platform I've ever used performs a forcible package upgrade
unless the package maintainer takes special pains to do otherwise.
Like I said, I'm not opposed to doing something about this, if something
simple solves it without adding a significant complexity overhead. Is it
enough to do what GHC does? I.e. a
"/Library/Frameworks/HaskellPlatform.framework/Versions" directory with
appropriate symlinks, as well as a bundled, optional uninstaller script
which zaps everything?
G
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Gregory Collins