On 7/27/11, Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote:

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Installing the Haskell Platform currently requires XCode developer tools.

To get XCode on my 10.6 machine, I...

My understanding is that it's about $5 (though I seem to recall hearing that they recently made it free), but I don't use OSX so I can't really help you.

The choices Apple's given me are OS X 10.7 ($30), or Developer Account ($99/1 year). I don't see XCode available for sale without one of these two.

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Is there a way to install HP without XCode? Could there be in the future? [...] it seems like a small function that XCode actually performs in the Haskell development "toolchain."

A C compiler (specifically gcc; not sure if anyone has tried GHC with clang yet). Whilst GHC doesn't need to go via C any more, the Haskell Platform does come with some libraries that have a C component; GHC is also partly written in C (for the RTS if memory serves) though that shouldn't be a factor here as you're getting a binary.

If this is the case, couldn't the HP use gcc instead? I'd personally advocate gcc as standard, not as a workaround, because a) gcc is FOSS. b) XCode is 4GB and its functionality is basically orthogonal to the needs of Haskell developers. Thanks for your time, Tom

On 27/07/2011, at 4:24 PM, Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote:

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If this is the case, couldn't the HP use gcc instead? I'd personally advocate gcc as standard, not as a workaround, because a) gcc is FOSS. b) XCode is 4GB and its functionality is basically orthogonal to the needs of Haskell developers.

Yes, but AFAIK to get gcc for OSX you get it from XCode :/

A quick web search for "Mac OS X gcc binary" turned up http://hpc.sourceforge.net/index.php with binary releases of GCC 4.6 for Lion and Snow Leopard. This requires "Developer Tools", but that isn't XCode, and it's on the OS X DVD.

27/07/2011 4:25 PM, Tom Murphy kirjutas:

On 7/27/11, Richard O'Keefe wrote:

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A quick web search for "Mac OS X gcc binary" turned up http://hpc.sourceforge.net/index.php with binary releases of GCC 4.6 for Lion and Snow Leopard.

This requires "Developer Tools", but that isn't XCode, and it's on the OS X DVD.

"Developer Tools" is actually what the HP requires. I think it might be under the XCode umbrella. Still, the Macbook Air doesn't come with an install for XCode or Developer Tools.

How can gcc require this stuff, though? Doesn't gcc pre-date all of this stuff by a decade and a half?

I believe it's to link in with all the very Mac-specific APIs and so on. Perhaps only OS X knows how to link a binary just right, or something.

On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 8:09 AM, Chris Smith wrote:

Alternatively, maybe it would it be easier to have the Mac users install VMWare's free version and I can just have them install Windows or Linux in that?  Or does it also have weird dependency issues like this, too?

(Perhaps wandering slightly O/T, but...) Having done some teaching in similar circumstances before (although not with Haskell), I'd highly recommend this approach. In fact, I'd probably have all the students, regardless of OS install VMWare or VirtualBox, and then distribute a VM image with the Haskell Platform and any other tools they need preinstalled. It means a bit of extra preparation, but it'll allow you to get to the interesting bit of the class more quickly and with less frustration on the part of both yourself and your students. Hope this helps. Chers, Tim

On 28 July 2011 03:58, Chris Smith wrote:

On Wed, 2011-07-27 at 08:27 +0100, Tim Cowlishaw wrote:

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(Perhaps wandering slightly O/T, but...) Having done some teaching in similar circumstances before (although not with Haskell), I'd highly recommend this approach. In fact, I'd probably have all the students, regardless of OS install VMWare or VirtualBox, and then distribute a VM image with the Haskell Platform and any other tools they need preinstalled.

Thanks for the advice.  I'd like to avoid this, because I want to leave the students with the impression that they have the tools to do their own programming for their own computers when they finish... but at least it's an option that lets Mac users have a working environment of some sort.  I've never had any problems with the Windows installation of the HP, and I'm knowledgeable enough to help with Linux, so I'm not worried about those.

I've tutored a Haskell course for the past two years at ANU (it's gone on for longer though) and students generally don't have a problem getting it working. There is a week or two when we have to track down all the OSX stuff (i.e. where is XCode, etc.) though it helps that Alex Mason also tutored it and uses OSX. Then comes the fun part where students are told to set up their editing environment on the uni Linux machines to set tabs to 4 literal spaces, etc. but never seem to remember to do so for their Windows machines... ;-) -- Ivan Lazar Miljenovic Ivan.Miljenovic@gmail.com IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com

On Wed, 2011-07-27 at 07:20 -0400, Jack Henahan wrote:

Bundling things with the HP is just going to bloat that download and confuse new users more (and my god, the dep-chasing... the number of libs that might have to be piled in on top of it could be absurd).

I don't understand this. Are you saying it would be too hard for the Haskell Platform maintainers to build the install kits? It seems like bundling gcc would be just the thing to solve all the problems with the XCode dependency (which I'm now told include not just the install-time dependencies, but also the Haskell Platform regularly breaking with every new operating system release). -- Chris Smith

On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 7:59 AM, Tom Murphy wrote:

+1 - does anyone know the answer to this?

On Jul 27, 2011 2:04 PM, "Chris Smith" wrote:

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On Wed, 2011-07-27 at 07:20 -0400, Jack Henahan wrote:

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Bundling things with the HP is just going to bloat that download and confuse new users more (and my god, the dep-chasing... the number of libs that might have to be piled in on top of it could be absurd).

I don't understand this. Are you saying it would be too hard for the Haskell Platform maintainers to build the install kits? It seems like bundling gcc would be just the thing to solve all the problems with the XCode dependency (which I'm now told include not just the install-time dependencies, but also the Haskell Platform regularly breaking with every new operating system release).

Has anyone ever (say, in the last 5 years) maintained a separate gcc distribution for the Mac? I'm unaware of any such production. Even MacPorts requires the developer tools to be preinstalled: http://www.macports.org/install.php In contrast, Windows has both the MinGW and Cygwin projects which each provide a port of gcc with a (partial or complete) POSIX compatibility layer. GHC and the HP include MinGW on Windows. The Mac developer community at large has determined that the most programmer-friendly option is to just install the free tools provided by Apple: - Every DVD of OS X has come with an optional install of the Dev Tools. The only exception is 10.7, which has to be downloaded itself anyway. - I just double-checked on developer.apple.com; with my free registration I can still download every version of the Developer Tools since at least 2004. Even the latest, Xcode 4.1, can be downloaded directly from that site without logging into the App Store. As a side anecdote, I've been the teaching assistant several times for a college course on introductory C++. I've told my students with Macs that if they want to write programs at home they should install the Dev Tools, and I've posted a short list of instructions on my website. Nearly all of them have found it very easy to get started working in Xcode, either by installing it from a DVD or by downloading it from online. Best, -Judah

In addition to the excellent reasons that Mark outlined, there is another important reason to *not* include gcc and friends in the HP. Every software developer (as opposed to friend of a friend who just wanted to try to learn programming with Haskell on a road trip) will already have Xcode installed on their Mac. Having two versions of gcc, make, lots of other tools, library headers, library objects, etc is going to lead to subtle bugs and headaches; at the latest, when you compile your first multi-language project. (This is where this is not comparable to the situation on Windows with mingw. A software developer on Windows, will have Visual Studio installed, but usually not some flavour of the GNU tools.) Manuel PS: I am sure there is demand for a self-contained, lightweight beginners/teaching Haskell environment, but let's not confuse that with the main distribution. Mark Lentczner:

Hiho - I'm the maintainer of the Mac installer for HP. I thought I'd chime in a bit:

On Mac OS X, "developer tools" is essentially synonymous with "Xcode". That is, to get the set of standard utilities needed for development on compiled executables (notably the "binutils"), you install Xcode. True, it also includes the IDE called Xcode, but the vast bulk of that installation are things like headers, link libraries, command line tools, and other utilities for development of compiled executables in general.

As several have pointed out, you can download Xcode for free. If you have Lion, you can get Xcode 4 for free from the Mac Store. Xcode 3 for 10.6 and 10.5. Traditionally, Apple has included Xcode on one of the CD-ROMs that came with a new computer, and/or as an installer already present on the hard disk. (I haven't bought a new Air... yet... but perhaps someone can check to see if the Xcode installer is one the SSD volume already?)

It is conceivably possible to build and distribute some of those tools, but not the whole bundle. But the difficulty of getting such a build just right, and all the pieces in the right place, seems absurd to attempt to recreate when Apple has done it, and gives it away for free. Apple's versions of bintools also includes many extensions extra options for the OS X environment (like supporting multi-arch binaries) Finally, there is also licensing questions regarding the parts supplied by the OS vendor (headers, stub libs, debug libs, etc....)

Given the above, perhaps it is a little more clear why we choose to not include the system development tools in the Haskell Platform installer.

- Mark

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Mark Lentczner writes:

As the README at that repository states, For 10.7 and later Apple now distributes a "Command Line Tools" package on the developer site. When I build and release the Haskell Platform, I confirm that works when just this package is installed (rather than all of Xcode).

[Message continues]

- Mark (HP release manager)

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Hi Mark, I will keep you updated, the issue is that I refuse to upgrade to 10.7 or later, many of the brilliant features from Snow Leopard were entirely ruined and I still see people complaining about having trouble with it on my model of MacBook. So for 10.6 users, this 3rd part installer is the only option I could find! Thanks, Andrew