(sorry for not answering to a previous message, I just subscribed). I think there should be a single option on the download page. The minimal HP seems OK to me, but I understand how not having control on the distribution of stack, while at the same time having to support it, could be a problem. So here is my 2c: * Have minimal HP be the only choice. I think this page is engaging and clear, and is a good example of what a beginner would like to see : https://haskell-lang.org/get-started * If at all possible, find a way to work with stack maintainers so that the HP stack install process matches that of the standalone tool.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi all, I believe haskell.org and its download section should be directed to total beginners and they should not be confronted with multiple choices. As someone who has personally seen people willing to learn Haskell give up, because they were burnt by the global package database, I think any global persistent state should be avoided in the tools recommended. This especially concerns all packages installed globally by default by HP. Cabal's default workflow (currently and probably for a long time in the future) also installs packages globally and is thus harmful for beginners, as they are not able to resolve conflicts and errors. This leaves me with Stack or a Minimal HP stripped down to only consist of GHC and Stack. Since a global GHC is not needed when using Stack and telling people to use `stack ghci` instead of `ghci` is absolutely no problem in my experience, I would go with Stack. To summarise: * haskell.org download section should cater to total beginners. * Giving multiple options is actively harmful, there should only be one. * Minimal HP is the wrong choice for this option. Stack is. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iEYEARECAAYFAlfESf8ACgkQdfjqTtaLPuHnXgCg1ZaEAajxjRh1AdzDAX96oG63 YH0An0uUl/pkWB1Tdu5Qi6Jj4t/PPb0k =8K1J -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Hi all, Jan has my full support -- I'm just one of these beginners, meaning I have tried several attempts to get started with Haskell and gave up after fighting some days with cabal. Currently I give stack a shot and have no other system GHC installed. This works very nicely for me and I have not encountered any problems. I would be really happy with seeing this approach supported by the whole ecosystem. Cheers, Friedrich On 29.08.2016 16:43, Jan Gerlinger wrote:
Hi all,
I believe haskell.org and its download section should be directed to total beginners and they should not be confronted with multiple choices.
As someone who has personally seen people willing to learn Haskell give up, because they were burnt by the global package database, I think any global persistent state should be avoided in the tools recommended. This especially concerns all packages installed globally by default by HP. Cabal's default workflow (currently and probably for a long time in the future) also installs packages globally and is thus harmful for beginners, as they are not able to resolve conflicts and errors.
This leaves me with Stack or a Minimal HP stripped down to only consist of GHC and Stack. Since a global GHC is not needed when using Stack and telling people to use `stack ghci` instead of `ghci` is absolutely no problem in my experience, I would go with Stack.
To summarise:
* haskell.org download section should cater to total beginners.
* Giving multiple options is actively harmful, there should only be one.
* Minimal HP is the wrong choice for this option. Stack is.
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participants (3)
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Friedrich Wiemer -
Jan Gerlinger -
Simon Marechal