Hello,
On 16-07-2010, Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
I'd like to request some clarification of some of the questions:
1. By "all projects", are you including one-use only scripts? How about university assessments (when it isn't Haskell-oriented, just have to write a program to do some simulation or something) and thus it isn't meant to be something used by other people or used after a certain date, etc.?
You can use cabal as a standalone build system generator. So you can use it also for unreleased projects. Using it this way shows that the tool "cabal" itself is useful. But you need to draw a line, so if you don't use it for "one-use only scripts", I think you should still answer "for all projects". But if you only use it for project that you intend to publish, you should answer "Only for projects released on Hackage".
3. I use cabal-install only in testing my own packages (as it's easier to do "cabal foo" than "runhaskell Setup.hs foo"). I also use cabal-install to test which packages I have installed have newer versions available (cabal update && cabal upgrade --dry-run) so that I can update the Gentoo packages for them. As such, which option should I choose from the ones offered (as none of them match my case)? Should the question be clarified and be made more explicit?
Depending if you only use Gentoo Haskell package or not: - if you use only Gentoo packages: "No, I only use packages from my Linux/Mac/Windows distribution" - if you still have some packages installed from Cabal: "I use cabal-install when my Linux/Mac/Windows distribution doesn't provide the package"
9. I wouldn't classify Hackage as a "tool", but even still, what happens if we think Hackage is very important but still should be replaced? (Playing devil's advocate here: I think it could do with some upgrades but there's no need to completely throw out what's already there).
It depends how strong your feeling about Hackage is: - if you say "damn it misses this or that" each time you use Hackage: "Hackage should be replaced by a better tool" - if you only have minor problems and think it is an important tool: "Hackage is a very important tool for the Haskell community" Regards, Sylvain Le Gall