I didn't wish to suggest that the latest version shouldn't be available.  If you read my entire message, the suggestion I made, is that arch should install the latest with the next to latest in parallel and do so by default rather than as some weird and hacky work-around. Sending pull requests is great.  But one shouldn't have to put their system back together after an upgrade.  You ask me what package has broken, but that's not important.  A package always breaks.  Right now, the situation, is that a haskell user on a completely standard setup, will type pacman -Syu and end up with a non functioning build toolchain.  You can of course work to fix this toolchain, and send pull requests. But say it takes a week to update all the packages you use.  That's a week of delay to a project.  Furthermore, it is not very efficient for me to go and upgrade other people' s packages.  Often times on this list there have been discussions regarding the upper bounds on cabal packages.  Some people believe that the upper bounds should be removed entirely, while others believe that they should be an educated guess made by the developer.  Tweaking upper bounds when I'm not the developer then makes my guessing all the less educated.  Me tweaking packages which I do not know and sending pull requests is not only going to cost me more time than it would cost the package author, it is likely to end up with me making the wrong changes and lead to a reduction in the quality of the code.   There seems to be a bit of a clash between ghc being a tool, and ghc being a toy.  There need not be.  Your works-for-me is great but it is meaningless to those of us who use ghc as a tool for larger projects. Timothy ---------- Původní zpráva ---------- Od: Clark Gaebel Datum: 28. 10. 2012 Předmět: Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch " Personally, I like the latest version of GHC being in the repository, as that's the version I normally use. What packages aren't working for you on 7.6? I find that they get updated pretty quickly, and if you run into any that aren't, feel free to send the authors a pull request. Almost everything is on github.     - Clark On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 4:49 PM, wrote: " Hello, Who is in charge of the ghc and haskell packages on Arch linux?  The current system isn't working. Arch linux tends to update packages very quickly. For ghc, always having the latest ghc isn't a good thing.  At least if you actually want to get some work done.  A majority of the time the latest GHC is unusable. This is because the packages in hackage simply don't keep up.  With the current ghc version(7.6.1) even some basic packages in hackage are not upgraded yet.  Right now, a large number of other haskell related packages are in the arch repos. Other than gtk2hs, I think these packages are pointless duplications.   In the other cases, it has been my experience that it is simpler to maintain these packages through cabal rather than through pacman.  Support for these packages in Arch should probably be dropped. If you want to get work done in Arch with haskell, you should only install ghc and cabal-install(right now, you'll have to search the Internet for the old binaries, because the arch repos usually don't keep the old versions around).  Then you should add these packages to "IgnorePkg =" in pacman.conf   this way things won't break every couple of months.  You can then choose to upgrade when you wish. I hope that someone who is involved with the haskell Arch stuff reads this.  The current model needs to be rethought.  Linux should be sane by default, but I've lost many many hours learning that arch's relationship with haskell is not so :(  Probably the best solution would be to make Arch automatically keep two versions of ghc around at any given time. Thank you for your time, Timothy Hobbs _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org(mailto:Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org) http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe (http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe) " "

Actually Arch has been accommodating in other cases when there was a stable library and a new/developing.  It certainly keeps around two versions of python, autoconf, GTK, qt, gambas...  The solution I'm proposing would be a little different than those cases, but on the same principle. Timothy ---------- Původní zpráva ---------- Od: Patrick Palka Datum: 28. 10. 2012 Předmět: Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch " On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 5:54 PM, wrote: "   There seems to be a bit of a clash between ghc being a tool, and ghc being a toy.  There need not be.  Your works-for-me is great but it is meaningless to those of us who use ghc as a tool for larger projects. " This is not specific to GHC. Arch Linux, being a bleeding-edge Linux distribution, tends to prefer newer versions of software over more stable versions of software. I doubt that facet of Arch Linux will ever change, so perhaps you should reevaluate your choice of Linux distribution or avoid pacman/package updates for software whose stability and predictability is critical to you. "

In his defense, from the perspective of a more or less newbie in the subject matter, I had quite a bit of trouble using Haskell under Arch. Not that it is so much better in other systems, I wouldn't know. I often was in the position to decide whether to use cabal-install, arch-haskell repositories or official repositories and many times the thing that worked for me was a mix of everything, which is quite sub-optimal, although more or less working for me at the moment. I'm not saying that this is because the way Arch works or the way Cabal is designed is wrong. Maybe it is because I'm not figuring it out. Some people say you should not use cabal-install as a package manager, because it is not supposed to be one. Again, other people say arch-haskell repositories are very buggy at the moment and one should install only cabal-install and ghc from the official repositories and only use cabal-install for the rest. Just telling my experience so far: I often have had to struggle between cabal dependency hell and non-working packages in the repositories. Either something is very wrong with the way things are right now or I'm doing everything wrong (which is more likely). I am still not in the condition of proposing things myself, but I don't think this is fair treatment so far to someone that is proposing a compromise solution to a problem he found. Anyway, hopefully this would be better clarified in the arch-haskell mailing list. 2012/10/29 Magnus Therning :

Hello Timothy,

Now I'm going to run the risk of upsetting you quite a bit by being completely blunt.

You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your own situation, but fail to see the larger picture. You do know *your* Haskell needs, and you know what *you* would want from a project like ArchHaskell. Then however you completely fail to realise that these are *your needs*, not anyone else's, but still you suggest that ArchHaskelll is broken because it doesn't provide a system that solves *your* problems.

I suggest you take your insights of your situation and try to find a solution that works for you, and it sounds like you're on the way already with cabal-install. If you have suggestions on how to improve ArchHaskell *within the goals of the project* (which includes the general goals of ArchLinux) that would make ArchHaskell more usable to you, then you are more than welcome. However, if all you do is suggest that we completely change the goals of ArchHaskell because they don't align with your needs, then we thank you for your input, but ask you to not hold your breath for any changes.

/M

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 9:49 PM, wrote:

...

Hello, Who is in charge of the ghc and haskell packages on Arch linux? The current system isn't working.

Arch linux tends to update packages very quickly.

For ghc, always having the latest ghc isn't a good thing. At least if you actually want to get some work done. A majority of the time the latest GHC is unusable. This is because the packages in hackage simply don't keep up. With the current ghc version(7.6.1) even some basic packages in hackage are not upgraded yet.

Right now, a large number of other haskell related packages are in the arch repos. Other than gtk2hs, I think these packages are pointless duplications. In the other cases, it has been my experience that it is simpler to maintain these packages through cabal rather than through pacman. Support for these packages in Arch should probably be dropped.

If you want to get work done in Arch with haskell, you should only install ghc and cabal-install(right now, you'll have to search the Internet for the old binaries, because the arch repos usually don't keep the old versions around). Then you should add these packages to "IgnorePkg =" in pacman.conf this way things won't break every couple of months. You can then choose to upgrade when you wish.

I hope that someone who is involved with the haskell Arch stuff reads this. The current model needs to be rethought. Linux should be sane by default, but I've lost many many hours learning that arch's relationship with haskell is not so :( Probably the best solution would be to make Arch automatically keep two versions of ghc around at any given time.

Thank you for your time, Timothy Hobbs

_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

-- Magnus Therning OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4 email: magnus@therning.org jabber: magnus@therning.org twitter: magthe http://therning.org/magnus

_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

If all you want is the Haskell Platform, I believe the Arch policy is to provide all those packages in the official [extra] repository. (If those are broken because of the new ghc, just use IgnorePkg to avoid the ghc update.) The [haskell] and other ArchHaskell repos are for the rest of Hackage that's not in the Platform. On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 1:53 PM, Brandon Allbery wrote:

On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 5:56 AM, Magnus Therning wrote:

...

Now I'm going to run the risk of upsetting you quite a bit by being completely blunt.

Indeed.

...

You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your own situation, but fail to see the larger picture. You do know *your*

May I ask you a question, then?

Does the Haskell Platform have any reason to exist?

Supposedly, the Haskell community backs the Haskell Platform as the way that most users should be using the Platform. Yet we have here a vendor platform which does not support it, and newcomers who notice this and question it are chastised for not thinking about the needs of other people. This suggests that the Haskell Platform is unimportant and perhaps disruptive to some significant group of people... is this so?

And then, looking at your own message, I must ask: have you considered that the Platform is aimed at the great many people who do not have large amounts of expertise maintaining their own personal Haskell ecosystem. Or are your needs so important that these people must in fact be told to deal?

Or, to phrase in your own words:

You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your

...

own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.

-- brandon s allbery kf8nh sine nomine associates allbery.b@gmail.com ballbery@sinenomine.net unix/linux, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure http://sinenomine.net

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I think you will find that the Original Poster did not ask about ArchHaskell, but rather about Haskell on the Arch platform. He was completely unaware of ArchHaskell as a project. This might be a source of some confusion, and help to explain divergent attitudes. Regards, Malcolm On 29 Oct 2012, at 14:41, Magnus Therning wrote:

Please stay on topic, this is *not* a discussion about Haskell Platform[1], it's a discussion on ArchHaskell[2]. Please read up on the mailing list archives first, and then, if you still feel there's a need to discuss HP in ArchHaskell (which isn't the same thing as Arch itself) then please start a new thread.

/M

[1]: http://www.haskell.org/platform/ [2]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ArchHaskell

On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 2:53 PM, Brandon Allbery wrote:

...

On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 5:56 AM, Magnus Therning wrote:

...

Now I'm going to run the risk of upsetting you quite a bit by being completely blunt.

Indeed.

...

You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your own situation, but fail to see the larger picture. You do know *your*

May I ask you a question, then?

Does the Haskell Platform have any reason to exist?

Supposedly, the Haskell community backs the Haskell Platform as the way that most users should be using the Platform. Yet we have here a vendor platform which does not support it, and newcomers who notice this and question it are chastised for not thinking about the needs of other people. This suggests that the Haskell Platform is unimportant and perhaps disruptive to some significant group of people... is this so?

And then, looking at your own message, I must ask: have you considered that the Platform is aimed at the great many people who do not have large amounts of expertise maintaining their own personal Haskell ecosystem. Or are your needs so important that these people must in fact be told to deal?

Or, to phrase in your own words:

...

You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.

-- brandon s allbery kf8nh sine nomine associates allbery.b@gmail.com ballbery@sinenomine.net unix/linux, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure http://sinenomine.net

-- Magnus Therning OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4 email: magnus@therning.org jabber: magnus@therning.org twitter: magthe http://therning.org/magnus

_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

Hi Timothy, the Haskell community is not the right audience to be addressing these complaints to. Instead, you should be talking to the ArchLinux developers, who are responsible for packaging Haskell-related software in the [core] and [extra] repositories. I am no expert in these matters, but my guess is that the mailing list https://mailman.archlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/arch-dev-public is more appropriate than haskell-cafe for this thread. Take care, Peter

I fail to see how a fringe bleeding edge linux distro undermines a haskell platform. Arch is bleeding edge. Haskell Platform is not. It is logical for a bleeding edge distro to include latest packages. If you want a good support, use distros that provide such support and stability. Last i checked Ubuntu ships haskell platform and not the latest ghc. Having said that, Arch DOES provide easy solution to this problem. Just put IgnorePkg in your pacman.conf. You are complaining on the wrong forum, to the wrong people about the behavior natural for a bleeding edge distro. On Monday, October 29, 2012 6:54:59 AM UTC-7, Brandon Allbery wrote:

On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 5:56 AM, Magnus Therning javascript:

...

wrote:

...

Now I'm going to run the risk of upsetting you quite a bit by being completely blunt.

Indeed.

...

You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your own situation, but fail to see the larger picture. You do know *your*

May I ask you a question, then?

Does the Haskell Platform have any reason to exist?

Supposedly, the Haskell community backs the Haskell Platform as the way that most users should be using the Platform. Yet we have here a vendor platform which does not support it, and newcomers who notice this and question it are chastised for not thinking about the needs of other people. This suggests that the Haskell Platform is unimportant and perhaps disruptive to some significant group of people... is this so?

And then, looking at your own message, I must ask: have you considered that the Platform is aimed at the great many people who do not have large amounts of expertise maintaining their own personal Haskell ecosystem. Or are your needs so important that these people must in fact be told to deal?

Or, to phrase in your own words:

You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your

...

own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.

-- brandon s allbery kf8nh sine nomine associates allb...@gmail.com javascript: ball...@sinenomine.net javascript: unix/linux, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure http://sinenomine.net