Re: Proposal: Expanding the CLC

I second Simon's words. I didn't read the previous thread, nor will I, so I have no idea what happened with your suggestion. The Haskell Foundation is primed to work toward solving some of the problems with the standard library. FWIW, your suggested operation is a primitive operation of the Extend/Comonad type-class called duplicate, though this is not in the standard libraries. On 2/17/21 8:54 AM, Simon Peyton Jones via Libraries wrote:

Ignat

Thanks for writing. You are just the sort of person that ought to feel welcome, and able to contribute. That you have not felt that way is a failure.

I'd like to suggest another explanation to the three you offer (none of which I subscribe to).

4. The now-very-large Haskell ecosystem runs on the efforts of busy volunteers, all of whom have day jobs. However well-meaning or high-minded we are, things will be left undone, or done less well than we aspire to.

I hope and believe that the Haskell Foundation will help with this challenge. I don’t think it'll be a silver bullet. But it should help; and making volunteers such as you feel both welcome and able to contribute meaningfully is certainly a major goal.

| Haskell has not only made me a programmer — it defined me as a person.  | There is no other language and no other community like this one. I have | reverence. Is it the same for anyone else here? Or should I, rather, grow | up and move on?

Please don't grow up and move on! We are working together to build not just a language to be proud of, but a community we can flourish in. We will stumble for sure, but if we are humble, respectful of each other, and willing to keep trying, I think we can succeed.

Simon

| -----Original Message----- | From: Libraries On Behalf Of Ignat | Insarov | Sent: 16 February 2021 21:57 | To: Carter Schonwald | Cc: Haskell Libraries | Subject: Re: Proposal: Expanding the CLC | | Carter's words touched me. Ever neither smart nor silent, I am going to | be a little loud once more. | | Being an outside spectator of this venue, a beneficiary _(one of | innumerably many)_ of the work being inconspicuously done by the persons | present, and a skilled developer that potentially may shoulder some of | the burden, I would really like to understand better the structure of | power and the philosophy behind the CLC enterprise — it is not | observable, therefore I cannot decide who to be thankful to and whether | my participation is reasonably warranted. I know there are people that do | a huge amount of work continuously fixing a vaguely defined cloud of | _«core»_ packages — but I also know these people have no idea that I | exist, from which it follows that my needs and wishes are respected only | accidentally. | | I am voicing this thought for these reasons: | | * I am a small scale commercial Haskell user — on its face it classifies | me as | the target audience. I am invested into Haskell but not a luminary like | those | others present here — rather an ordinary person, an average. In some | way this | makes me a representative example. | | * I am somewhat altruistic. I contribute open source code, answer | questions | about Haskell and even help people privately without mercantile aims.  | This | suggests that I should want to participate in an effort that is | beneficial to | many — being an altruist, I may as well be an effective one. | | If there is a person that should be caught in the wave, that is me here.  | But it is very evident that I am not. The story is that I asked `\x → (x, | x)` to be given a place in standard libraries — hard to find a more | innocent proposition. As some know, it did not go well. _(This is not an | only example but the most striking.)_ There are several possible | explanations. | | 1. This is meritocracy at work. Haskell collects some of the most gifted | programmers of the world. A mere mortal cannot possibly suggest any | beneficial change to `base` or `containers` or `vector` or `cabal- | install` — | in all likelihood it was already considered by the wise council. | | 2. The philosophy is unclear and undisputed. For example, it was | suggested to me | in private correspondence that the reason the standard libraries are | not | being extended more often is because exporting more names is wrong.  | This is | of course as valid a principle as any — but I do not see it being | spelled out | and considered on the basis of evidence. Perhaps the wizards of code | are not | that good at other things, like being clear about their design goals. | | 3. The power structure is set up in favour of a specific invisible group | that | sets the tune. Recall the story about Stack and Cabal. It had been | shown | clearly that the interests of the community at large are not | represented in | the group of maintainers of Cabal. It is hard to triangulate from the | distance what exactly went wrong, but on the basis of the meager | evidence | that I can have, the theory is plausible, and evidence keeps adding | up. | | There is also a question of who selects the libraries to be called | _«core»_. For example, Stack _(and, consequently, half the user base of | Haskell)_ depends on `rio`, and `typed-process` is a superiour | replacement for `process`. Should the _«core»_ include packages vital to | half the user base? Should it include a superiour replacement of a | morally obsolete package? Or is it a place where leviathans of the past | come to die? What does it entail for a package to be considered _«core»_?  | Does it get included in the standard distribution? What sort of packages | should we like to distribute? | | Finally, there is a question of high principles. Haskell can be a | pragmatic tool of the trade or a paragon of elegance, rock-solid or | bleeding edge… maybe even all of it at once, but what does the | _management_ want it to be? What do you folks dream of? What is your | ideal? I cannot see any — I only see reactive efforts to fend off the | inevitably approaching future. No one would be inspired by that. I | suspect there are a few people that get paid to contribute to Haskell.  | Maybe that should be the main motive instead? Maybe it is time to say | that Haskell is a commercial language maintained by corporate employees?  | I would not like to be one but at least expectations would be aligned. | | Haskell has not only made me a programmer — it defined me as a person.  | There is no other language and no other community like this one. I have | reverence. Is it the same for anyone else here? Or should I, rather, grow | up and move on? | _______________________________________________ | Libraries mailing list | Libraries@haskell.org | https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmail.has | kell.org%2Fcgi- | bin%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Flibraries&data=04%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microso | ft.com%7C7f7bb62c42ac43639d6a08d8d2c5c706%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011d | b47%7C1%7C0%7C637491094192227676%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAw | MDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=VxR73 | 6V5TUUf%2B0OfzlBAQK9GG1CpaiBZahvqtiE7obM%3D&reserved=0 _______________________________________________ Libraries mailing list Libraries@haskell.org http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/libraries