On Mon, Sep 17, 2007 at 10:05:36AM +0100, Neil Mitchell wrote:
Would you care to explain why you have this aversion to libs that aren't bundled with ghc?
They are less stable and have less quality control. It is also an additional burden for a user to install the library to get the program working.
This is basically the issue. I've never used a Data.Map in any "real" code (that was written by me... Data.Map is used in xmonad, upon which I hack, but don't feel motivated to propose alternative requirements for installation), only in toy codes. And for that purpose, I didn't really want to go to the trouble of seeking out and researching various alternatives. For a trivial "count the frequency of characters in a text file" toy code, it hardly seems like a reasonable expectation that a beautiful implementation should require the installation of extra libraries.
cabal-install should fix the second. Some useful community feedback on hackage could fix the first. By removing most bundled libraries from GHC, we can get to the point where people _have_ to use non bundled libraries, then everyone will be on a more equal footing.
cabal-install may help, but what I'd really want is packaging in debian. That's my (biased, because I used debian) standard of a "maintained, useful library." It's obviously a biased standard, but it isn't too hard for a package to get into debian, and if it *does* get into debian, it suggests someone cares about it. I don't like requiring obscure packages that perhaps have no code review, and perhaps have no users other than the author. -- David Roundy Department of Physics Oregon State University