Anthony Clayden
I would ask anyone who feels that GHC development is exclusionary to please be in touch; I am very interested to know how we can improve.
I'd like to cite as evidence the survey results Francesco links to: I don't think I ever got invited to contribute -- where would that have been? There wasn't an invite on the Hugs-users list.
For what it's worth, there was an invitation to respond to the 2019 State of Haskell Survey was sent to this very list [1]. However, I believe there was only one such announcement so it is understandable that it could be missed.
Note I don't use Reddit because I'm not a brogrammer.
The survey is kinda self-fulfilling: most people don't use GHC on Windows, because it's too hard to install.
Indeed the fact that most of our users use Linux or Darwin poses a significant challenge for Windows support. We often only learn of regressions on Windows quite late as a result. However, of all of the problems with Windows that we might have, issues with installation instructions should be avoidable. It sounds like your primary concern is that we recommend Chocolatey on https://haskell.org/platform [2]? It would be helpful if you could describe what your precise objections to Chocolatey are; I'll admit I'm not familiar enough with it to know why someone might prefer to avoid it. I sounds like there may be two possible reasons: * it requires elevated permissions * it requires PowerShell, which the user may not be familiar with The download page [2] is trying to strike a delicate balance: On one hand we want as few options as possible to avoid confusion; on the other we do want to be accomodating to user preferences. Perhaps we could amend the text to say something like: The recommended way to get started with Haskell on Windows is by using using [Chocolatey] to install `ghc` and `cabal-install` (users not interested in Chocolatey should refer to the [alternate Windows instructions]). Further details for Chocolatey usage are available [here]. Users should follow the instructions at [haskellstack.org] to install `stack`. To get started perform these steps: 1. Configure [Chocolatey] on your machine. 2. If upgrading from the old-style `haskell-platform` installer, clean the cabal configuration by running: cabal user-config init -f Then uninstall prior versions of the platform. 3. At an elevated command prompt, run: ``` choco install haskell-dev refreshenv ``` Where [alternate Windows instructions] would describe installation from a binary distribution. Perhaps this would be an improvement over the status quo?
GHC is exclusionary against casual/recreational Haskellers (who are more likely on Windows) and those more interested in using it to explore PL Theory.
This is sad to hear and a trend that we should try hard to suppress. One of Haskell's greatest strengths is its diversity of users and contributors. Cheers, - Ben [1] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2019-November/131633.html [2] https://www.haskell.org/platform/windows.html#windows