dave:
Since the Haskell Platform is (or will become) the recommended way to install Haskell for inexperienced users, I am concerned about how difficult it is to find information about the Platform from its primary web page at http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/.
For example, it's not obvious how a non-expert user would find answers to these questions:
1. Where should I send questions about the Haskell Platform? The only contact information provided is the bug tracker.
2. When was the last release of the Haskell Platform? A new user, seeing the version number 2009.2.0.2, is more likely to think "February" than "August".
3. When is the next release of the Haskell Platform?
4. How often are releases scheduled?
5. What is new in the current release?
6. What will be included in the next release? If that isn't known yet, when will it be known?
7. Are there any outstanding issues I should know about? (For example, do I need to manually edit /usr/bin/ghc after installation on any particular platforms?)
Note: I am not looking for answers to these questions (except maybe 3 and 5). My concern is that this information is not readily available.
Answers to many of these things are here, http://trac.haskell.org/haskell-platform/ Including release schedules: http://trac.haskell.org/haskell-platform/wiki/ReleaseTimetable We have a new page planned: http://trac.haskell.org/haskell-platform/ticket/20 Suggestions on how best to encorporate more detailed info like this into a user page would be welcome. -- Don