On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 4:37 PM, Simon Peyton-Jones <simo...@microsoft.com>wrote:
> One of the great things about the Haskell mailing lists is the > supportive, respectful tone that is the dominant mode of discourse. I > sense that things are getting a little out of control in this particular > thread. Even though this particular issue is clearly extremely frustrating > for those involved, it would be great to turn down the emotional > temperature.**** > I don’t know why Haskell folk tend to be so generous and helpful, but they > really are. (Maybe it’s the hylomorphisms.) Anyway, let’s keep it that way. > **** > > Agreed, the thing that surprised me the most when I started reading this list was how nice people were, even when faced with some pretty hostile people. I think we all agree that dependency management is hard in any system, especially with a lot of generally unmaintained pieces. And the fact that 100% backwards compatibility doesn't seem to be a directive in the language committee like it might be for languages like C++ might frustrate people. I'm pretty sure most of us have experienced some issue with dependencies breaking , and its probably the most frustrating problem we can have have in any language. It's hard not to take this all a bit personally. Maybe if we think more about how to solve this (getting people to maintain their stuff, for example) we can make the world a better place instead of bickering about issues that are more or less language-agnostic really. On a side note is there a place where we can see what packages have broken on recent releases? > > Simon**** > > ** ** > > *From:* haskell-cafe-boun...@haskell.org [mailto: > haskell-cafe-boun...@haskell.org] *On Behalf Of *Gregory Collins > *Sent:* 03 May 2013 08:27 > *To:* Adrian May > *Cc:* Haskell Cafe > *Subject:* Re: [Haskell-cafe] Backward compatibility**** > > ** ** > > On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 6:48 AM, Adrian May <adrian.alexander....@gmail.com> > wrote:**** > > May I venture a guess that you never tried to manage a 5-10 million line > project?**** > > ** ** > > I build a project a couple orders of magnitude bigger than that dozens of > times every day. Similar stories are not uncommon among people who inhabit > this list. But thanks, citing that figure as an excuse to be condescending > to that person was really worth a giggle this morning. :)**** > > ** ** > > ** ** > > That's what I do. I'm not a programmer, I'm a manager. I run teams of a > few dozen people on subprojects within huge telecom-related projects, and > my job is to try and keep it all from collapsing in a heap of bugs. **** > > ** ** > > If you had any experience of that you'd run a mile from any technology > with this hit and miss attitude. **** > > ** ** > > You keep saying things like this. Actually, you're in this situation > because one or more people within your organization have made a succession > of very bad choices. Haskell is not to blame. Personally, I almost can't > believe you're taking this tack on the list now that the details of your > situation are apparent: you've let a 5-10 million line project spiral out > of control without putting the necessary software engineering > infrastructure and controls in place.**** > > ** ** > > **** > > I can't tell people what version they should be using because half of > them work for a completely different company. They have their own > dependencies coming from other projects that I'm not even allowed to know > about.**** > > > ... and the truth emerges. This issue you're having reflects a lot more > strongly on your technical culture than it does on any instability in GHC. > **** > > ** ** > > Listen: someone within your organization decided to build a product based > on a very old library which is no longer maintained by anyone. If this > library were actually critical to your business, you would fork it and > either get someone in-house or pay a contractor to fix bugs and keep it up > to date. (And there are plenty of people here who might be interested in a > contract gig to fix this for you if you asked).**** > > ** ** > > Repeatedly claiming in the most histrionic terms that GHC ought to freeze > forever and never deprecate anything again so that you can avoid doing your > job properly is simply not realistic, especially given Haskell's social > culture (newsflash: it's a research platform), and is not going to garner > you any sympathy on this list, either. You could practically be the poster > boy for why we have the motto "avoid success at all costs". > **** > > ** ** > > You have two options: stay on GHC 6.x (the bits didn't get deleted from > the internet), and if that isn't practical, fix Wash (or pay someone to do > it if you don't know how) and get on with your life.**** > > ** ** > > G**** > > -- > Gregory Collins <g...@gregorycollins.net> **** > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-Cafe mailing list > Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org > http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe > >
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe