Re: [Haskell-cafe] Re: String vs ByteString

Johan Tibell wrote:

On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 4:24 PM, Kevin Jardine mailto:kevinjardine@gmail.com> wrote:

One of the more puzzling aspects of Haskell for newbies is the large number of libraries that appear to provide similar/duplicate functionality.

I agree.

Here's a rule of thumb: If you have binary data, use Data.ByteString. If you have text, use Data.Text. Those libraries have benchmarks and have been well tuned by experienced Haskelleres and should be the fastest and most memory compact in most cases. There are still a few cases where String beats Text but they are being worked on as we speak.

Interesting. I've never even heard of Data.Text. When did that come into existence? More importantly: How does the average random Haskeller discover that a package has become available that might be relevant to their work?