Re: [HOpenGL] Hello HOpenGL

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 5:02 AM, Balazs Komuves wrote:

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 1:32 PM, Jason Dagit wrote:

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On May 19, 2011 5:02 AM, "Balazs Komuves" wrote:

...

Hi,

I see you plan a complete rewrite, and removing the deprecated functionality. In this case I suggest to make a new package instead of a new version of the old OpenGL package, since it will actually be a very different package, presumably with different APIs, etc (and I don't think Sven actually agreed to replace it, since we cannot seem to reach him).

I have to keep my reply short because I'm traveling, but two comments.

Sven is no longer the maintainer, so we don't have to think too hard about what he would do. We can make all the necessary decisions ourselves.

Well, they way this change happened is arguably not completely transparent...

I did my best to be transparent about it. I made sure to email this list, haskell-cafe, haskell, and the libraries list asking if anyone had heard from Sven. I waited about a month before taking action. He still hasn't reappeared. I have no desire to take control by force but I do think Sven has effectively stopped maintaining these libraries and I don't want to see them disappear. Do you have advice on what I should have done differently? The only actions I've taken at this point are: * Declaring myself maintainer * Putting the repos on github * Updating the Haskell wiki to point to github * Creating a haskell-opengl organization on github to organize the development efforts The Haskell-opengl org is here, if anyone on this list wants to join please send me an email: https://github.com/haskell-opengl One of the things I have NOT done yet is to upload new versions of the libraries to hackage. I thought I would wait a bit longer than just a month before doing that in case announcing a new maintainer prompted Sven to reappear. It would be good to upload some bug fixes soon-ish though.

Anyway, there are objective reasons to make a different package: Apart from those I mentioned in my last email, we actually have hands-on experience what happens when a big rewrite happens the way you suggest, namely the parsec package, which still causes serious pains years later. We have parsec v2.x, parsec v3.x, parsec1, parsec2 and parsec3 on Hackage; that's five versions in four packages with different maintainers, all because of one wrong decision. And arguably parsec2 vs. parsec3 is a much smaller change than what you plan.

Furthermore, let's suppose the completely realistic situation one would like to use both the old and the new versions of the OpenGL package. This is next-to-impossible when it is the same package (and painful in any case), since other libraries you want to use but depend on OpenGL have to be recompiled each time. I again have hands-on experience with this, as I maintain a private branch the (very) old (before OpenGLRaw) OpenGL binding since I use frame buffer objects and other functionality not in the official package. Arguably, this is an issue of Cabal, but I have no high hopes for Cabal to solve this in the near future, and anyway, we should make life more painful just because.

Maybe we can get your frame buffer objects in to the newer bindings? Thanks, Jason