Very good!  This one is perhaps a missing piece, if you are saying that a Windows user cannot use GHC without MSYS:

• On Windows, it does not provide a complete environment (missing MSYS).

On the other hand these three are examples of HP getting in the way:

• By placing a large number of packages in the global package database, Haskell Platform installations are more easily corrupted.

• The choice of package versions conflicts with the needs of many commonly used packages.

• Some of the package versions included with the platform have known and severe bugs, and cannot be reliably upgraded.

My question was: can they be fixed so that HP does not get in the way?  E.g. if we solve the multiple-versions-of-packages problem with Cabal (which Duncan in a separate thread says we can), then that would solve the first two; and for the third, I guess the solution is to release a new version of HP.

Simon

From: Mike Meyer [mailto:mwm@mired.org]
Sent: 25 March 2015 09:30
To: Simon Peyton Jones
Cc: Mark Lentczner; Gershom B; Manuel M T Chakravarty; haskell-platform@projects.haskell.org; haskell-infrastructure@community.galois.com; Duncan Coutts; ghc-devs@haskell.org; Haskell Libraries
Subject: Re: wither the Platform

On Wed, Mar 25, 2015 at 4:09 AM, Simon Peyton Jones <simonpj@microsoft.com> wrote:

So that was the plan.  I still think it’s a good plan.  But it clearly is not working well, and I’m hazy about why.  Possible reasons:

Possibly relevant is the stackage commentary on HP at http://www.stackage.org/install#why-not-haskell-platform:

• On Windows, it does not provide a complete environment (missing MSYS).

• By placing a large number of packages in the global package database, Haskell Platform installations are more easily corrupted.

• The choice of package versions conflicts with the needs of many commonly used packages.

• Some of the package versions included with the platform have known and severe bugs, and cannot be reliably upgraded.