Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
On Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 09:57:52AM +0100, Andrew Coppin wrote: > When I first started using Haskell, I got the impression that there were > hundreds, maybe even thousands, of developers working on GHC. (After > all, how else could you write such a huge codebase in less than two > centuries?) But now it appears the number of active developers is nearer > to 3. This is obviously a jaw-droppingly tiny number of people to be > working on such a gigantic piece of software. If it's really true, it's > amazing anything ever gets done at all! Now you see the power of Haskell. By offloading tasks from your brain to the type system you can tackle wildly larger tasks than you would be able to with a lesser language. Haskell programs end up being a tiny fraction of the size and complexity of programs in other languages to acomplish the same task and the difference gets more pronounced as programs get larger. It is how I was able to write jhc for the most part by myself. Haskell is an intelligence multiplier. John -- John Meacham - ⑆repetae.net⑆john⑈ - http://notanumber.net/ ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
What haskell really needs is a big ' hit' where someone shows how powerful haskell is in some environment. Ruby had RoR, which is what splurged the language into the open On 22/08/2010 3:46 PM, "wren ng thornton" wrote: Daniel Fischer wrote: > > On Saturday 21 August 2010 15:35:08, Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote: >> >> A ... Three! -- Live well, ~wren ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org ... ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Daniel Fischer wrote: On Saturday 21 August 2010 15:35:08, Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote: A Bazillion is an imaginary number meant to indicate something extremely large: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazillion#-illion Yes, but 'extremely large' numbers mean different things, depending on whether we talk about for example midges in Scotland (bazillion >= 10^20), people in a football stadium (bazillion >= 5*10^4) or people at your sister's wedding (bazillion >= 50). So how much is a bazillion when it comes to Haskell programmers? Three! -- Live well, ~wren ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
> I wonder... How many people are actually working on Cabal? > > When I first started using Haskell, I got the impression that there were > hundreds, maybe even thousands, of developers working on GHC. (After all, > how else could you write such a huge codebase in less than two centuries?) > But now it appears the number of active developers is nearer to 3. This is > obviously a jaw-droppingly tiny number of people to be working on such a > gigantic piece of software. If it's really true, it's amazing anything ever > gets done at all! I haven't seen any studies about this, but my impression is that most successful open source projects will be doing well to have 3 full time contributors. There will be a much larger cloud of people who come and go and contribute a few patches, but if you've got 3 people working consistently, after a number of years that really starts to add up. Even in the closed source world... the (internal) application I work on really only has about 3 people who really understand the whole thing and wrote large parts of it. The rest of us hang out on the edges, fixing the odd bug or two. Looking at the ardour commits, it seems like basically two guys doing most of the work. When I looked at the gimp a number of years back, it was a similar story. With say python, it's maybe around 5 or so, but that includes a huge library. When you look at the core, the same names come back again and again. Anyone with experience of any other large successful open source programs care to support or refute? I do agree, though, that what Ian and the Simons (and the Ganeshs and Manuels and assorted MSR interns and...) have built over the years is remarkable and inspiring, not to mention very useful. ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote: Since the population of the planet is roughly 6 Billion, I would guess that Andrew is under the miscomprehension that aliens make up the vast majority of Haskell users. Let's face it, Haskell *does* look like a technology invented by an alien intelligence immesurably superior to our own. No surprise, then, that most of its users are also from another planet. ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
On Saturday 21 August 2010 15:35:08, Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote: > > A Bazillion is an imaginary number meant to indicate something extremely > large: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazillion#-illion Yes, but 'extremely large' numbers mean different things, depending on whether we talk about for example midges in Scotland (bazillion >= 10^20), people in a football stadium (bazillion >= 5*10^4) or people at your sister's wedding (bazillion >= 50). So how much is a bazillion when it comes to Haskell programmers? > > Since the population of the planet is roughly 6 Billion, I would guess > that Andrew is under the miscomprehension that aliens make up the vast > majority of Haskell users Ordinary people don't use Haskell, so if you're using Haskell, you're ipso facto an alien ;-) > (or else he is taking into account everyone > who will ever use Haskell as well, since after all Haskell will > eventually replace all other inferior languages to become the One True > Language!). That'd be Haskell''' rather than Haskell. > > > > It's a kind of magic. > > I believe Don wrote a successor to lambdabot to generate all of his > libraries for him, and Galois is just a front to make it appear that > multiple people are working on these libraries when in reality it's just > his bot. Or that. ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Daniel Fischer writes: > On Saturday 21 August 2010 14:57:26, Andrew Coppin wrote: >> Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote: >> > Andrew Coppin writes: >> >> So now I wonder about Darcs, Cabal, Haddock, Hackage, and all those >> >> other big projects. Do they really have a bazillion people working on >> >> them? Or is it just two blokes in their spare time? (And, more >> >> importantly, how do you find out?) >> > >> > Seeing as how we don't have a bazillion people using Haskell... ;-) >> >> I don't know - how many packages are on Hackage now? That's a few GB of >> source code, right? It didn't write itself. ;-) >> > > How many people have hackage accounts? Much fewer than a bazillion (I > think, how much is a bazillion anyway?). > Some of them are *very* productive. A Bazillion is an imaginary number meant to indicate something extremely large: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazillion#-illion Since the population of the planet is roughly 6 Billion, I would guess that Andrew is under the miscomprehension that aliens make up the vast majority of Haskell users (or else he is taking into account everyone who will ever use Haskell as well, since after all Haskell will eventually replace all other inferior languages to become the One True Language!). >> > My understanding is that Cabal, Haddock, Hackage (as in the web >> > infrastructure, etc.) and GHC all have a small core team of about 3 >> > developers and a whole bunch of people who have committed patches at >> > one time or another and might even do so on an irregular basis. Darcs >> > seems to have a larger team behind it. >> >> OK, wow. Makes you wonder how anything ever gets done at all, eh? >> > > It's a kind of magic. I believe Don wrote a successor to lambdabot to generate all of his libraries for him, and Galois is just a front to make it appear that multiple people are working on these libraries when in reality it's just his bot. -- Ivan Lazar Miljenovic ivan.miljeno...@gmail.com IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
On Saturday 21 August 2010 14:57:26, Andrew Coppin wrote: > Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote: > > Andrew Coppin writes: > >> So now I wonder about Darcs, Cabal, Haddock, Hackage, and all those > >> other big projects. Do they really have a bazillion people working on > >> them? Or is it just two blokes in their spare time? (And, more > >> importantly, how do you find out?) > > > > Seeing as how we don't have a bazillion people using Haskell... ;-) > > I don't know - how many packages are on Hackage now? That's a few GB of > source code, right? It didn't write itself. ;-) > How many people have hackage accounts? Much fewer than a bazillion (I think, how much is a bazillion anyway?). Some of them are *very* productive. > > My understanding is that Cabal, Haddock, Hackage (as in the web > > infrastructure, etc.) and GHC all have a small core team of about 3 > > developers and a whole bunch of people who have committed patches at > > one time or another and might even do so on an irregular basis. Darcs > > seems to have a larger team behind it. > > OK, wow. Makes you wonder how anything ever gets done at all, eh? > It's a kind of magic. ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote: Andrew Coppin writes: So now I wonder about Darcs, Cabal, Haddock, Hackage, and all those other big projects. Do they really have a bazillion people working on them? Or is it just two blokes in their spare time? (And, more importantly, how do you find out?) Seeing as how we don't have a bazillion people using Haskell... ;-) I don't know - how many packages are on Hackage now? That's a few GB of source code, right? It didn't write itself. ;-) My understanding is that Cabal, Haddock, Hackage (as in the web infrastructure, etc.) and GHC all have a small core team of about 3 developers and a whole bunch of people who have committed patches at one time or another and might even do so on an irregular basis. Darcs seems to have a larger team behind it. OK, wow. Makes you wonder how anything ever gets done at all, eh? ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Andrew Coppin writes: > Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote: >> Andrew Coppin writes: >> >>> (Unless you're suggesting that I should try to actually *fix* these >>> things. The way I figure it, if an army of developers who are already >>> experts on the subject haven't been able to fix it yet, it must be >>> extremely hard, and so there's no way *I* can fix it.) >>> >> >> Or maybe they have other things to do (e.g. Duncan is working, finishing >> off his PhD thesis and answering queries like this; when do you expect >> him to get any hacking done? :p). >> > > I wonder... How many people are actually working on Cabal? > > When I first started using Haskell, I got the impression that there > were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of developers working on > GHC. (After all, how else could you write such a huge codebase in less > than two centuries?) But now it appears the number of active > developers is nearer to 3. This is obviously a jaw-droppingly tiny > number of people to be working on such a gigantic piece of > software. If it's really true, it's amazing anything ever gets done at > all! > > So now I wonder about Darcs, Cabal, Haddock, Hackage, and all those > other big projects. Do they really have a bazillion people working on > them? Or is it just two blokes in their spare time? (And, more > importantly, how do you find out?) Seeing as how we don't have a bazillion people using Haskell... ;-) My understanding is that Cabal, Haddock, Hackage (as in the web infrastructure, etc.) and GHC all have a small core team of about 3 developers and a whole bunch of people who have committed patches at one time or another and might even do so on an irregular basis. Darcs seems to have a larger team behind it. -- Ivan Lazar Miljenovic ivan.miljeno...@gmail.com IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote: Andrew Coppin writes: (Unless you're suggesting that I should try to actually *fix* these things. The way I figure it, if an army of developers who are already experts on the subject haven't been able to fix it yet, it must be extremely hard, and so there's no way *I* can fix it.) Or maybe they have other things to do (e.g. Duncan is working, finishing off his PhD thesis and answering queries like this; when do you expect him to get any hacking done? :p). I wonder... How many people are actually working on Cabal? When I first started using Haskell, I got the impression that there were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of developers working on GHC. (After all, how else could you write such a huge codebase in less than two centuries?) But now it appears the number of active developers is nearer to 3. This is obviously a jaw-droppingly tiny number of people to be working on such a gigantic piece of software. If it's really true, it's amazing anything ever gets done at all! So now I wonder about Darcs, Cabal, Haddock, Hackage, and all those other big projects. Do they really have a bazillion people working on them? Or is it just two blokes in their spare time? (And, more importantly, how do you find out?) ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Andrew Coppin writes: > Duncan Coutts wrote: >> Yup, there's a ticket for it. >> > > In fact, there appears to be a ticket for every single thing I > originally mentioned. And they're all ancient tickets too. So, > yeah... nothing to do here. > > (Unless you're suggesting that I should try to actually *fix* these > things. The way I figure it, if an army of developers who are already > experts on the subject haven't been able to fix it yet, it must be > extremely hard, and so there's no way *I* can fix it.) Or maybe they have other things to do (e.g. Duncan is working, finishing off his PhD thesis and answering queries like this; when do you expect him to get any hacking done? :p). -- Ivan Lazar Miljenovic ivan.miljeno...@gmail.com IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
wren ng thornton wrote: Andrew Coppin wrote: I guess I just figured that since Cabal is used by hundreds of millions of people every single day, any little glitches I might have come across have already been seen by at least 1,000 people before me (and hence, the developers already know about it and just haven't had time to fix it yet). Which is why, when filing a report, you scan/search the bug tracker first to make sure you're not filing a duplicate :) Just remember, those thousands of other people are probably thinking the same thing you are. This is well a well-documented phenomenon in more serious circumstances: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect Well, I just had a look, and it seems every issue I've mentioned already has a (very old) ticket. So apparently these are all very well-known issues (and presumably too hard to fix). ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Duncan Coutts wrote: Yes, when cabal runs haddock on a package, it generates a comprehensive index if none is present or expands it with the new docs. Quite cool that :) It's something I've always _wanted_ Cabal to do, but this is the first time I've ever seen it happen. I don't know what particularly I did to make this happen, and now it seems to be gone, so... If you have documentation enabled then it is recreated every time you install a package. That's what I was expecting to happen... but no. Each package gets its documentation generated, but the master index I deleted seems to be gone forever. (Though only for user packages, since we have not yet worked out somewhere sensible we can stick a global index). Uh... maybe that's it then? Yes, I think I changed it from local to global. It was putting all the binaries and documentation under Documents and Settings. I changed the install type to global, and it went back to putting stuff under Program Files\Haskell like it always used to. I'm not sure what "somewhere sensible" is supposed to mean; until I deleted it, the master index was under Program Files\Haskell\doc, right next to all the globally-installed packages. Or did you mean there isn't a good place on Unix? Yup, there's a ticket for it. In fact, there appears to be a ticket for every single thing I originally mentioned. And they're all ancient tickets too. So, yeah... nothing to do here. (Unless you're suggesting that I should try to actually *fix* these things. The way I figure it, if an army of developers who are already experts on the subject haven't been able to fix it yet, it must be extremely hard, and so there's no way *I* can fix it.) If you have documentation enabled (ie use --enable-documentation on the command line, or have "documentation: True" in the ~/.cabal/config file) then docs get created for each package you install, and the haddock index/contents of all installed docs gets updated. Right. I still get documentation for each package, just no master index. That's the way it always used to work, and that apparently is the way it works again now... I imagine it's so that each package can be placed in a completely arbitrary place in the filesystem, and the links still work. I'd actually be surprised if these URLs work on Linux either; they don't appear to follow the requisit web standards. You may be right, or perhaps URL syntax is just liberal enough to let unix style paths work. It's still a bug of course that we're not using the file:// protocol which makes it not work on windows. I filed it here: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/516#comment:6 Yeah, I believe at least under HTTP, "/" refers to the root folder of the current server, so that probably works for an absolute path. "C:\" isn't going to be valid without a protocol spec. (I actually cannot remember now whether the Windows paths had forward or backward slashes.) I think either removing the drive spec or adding a protocol spec should fix this; the latter would seem more "correct". (Again, this is a Haddock issue rather than Cabal, isn't it?) ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Duncan Coutts writes: > On 19 August 2010 21:15, Andrew Coppin wrote: >> Daniel Fischer wrote: > >>> Yes, when cabal runs haddock on a package, it generates a comprehensive >>> index if none is present or expands it with the new docs. >>> Quite cool that :) >>> >> >> It's something I've always _wanted_ Cabal to do, but this is the first time >> I've ever seen it happen. I don't know what particularly I did to make this >> happen, and now it seems to be gone, so... > > If you have documentation enabled then it is recreated every time you > install a package. > > (Though only for user packages, since we have not yet worked out > somewhere sensible we can stick a global index). /usr/share/doc/haskell/ ? However I think distros usually don't like un-versioned directories there... :( One thing I always find slightly irritating is that when using what seems to be the default "/usr/share/doc/packagename-packageversion", then every time I upgrade something then my bookmark links are all wrong (and my browse history is full of now-useless links). -- Ivan Lazar Miljenovic ivan.miljeno...@gmail.com IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
On 19 August 2010 21:15, Andrew Coppin wrote:
> Daniel Fischer wrote:
>> Yes, when cabal runs haddock on a package, it generates a comprehensive
>> index if none is present or expands it with the new docs.
>> Quite cool that :)
>>
>
> It's something I've always _wanted_ Cabal to do, but this is the first time
> I've ever seen it happen. I don't know what particularly I did to make this
> happen, and now it seems to be gone, so...
If you have documentation enabled then it is recreated every time you
install a package.
(Though only for user packages, since we have not yet worked out
somewhere sensible we can stick a global index).
> I gathered. Apparently there's no "cabal uninstall" or even merely a "cabal
> unregister" yet... (There must surely be a ticket for that already?)
Yup, there's a ticket for it.
> Well, the worst thing that can happen is I get no documentation, which isn't
> exactly a disaster. I'm just wondering how these files got created to start
> with; adding more packages doesn't appear to recreate it. I suppose I could
> try reinstalling all of them...
If you have documentation enabled (ie use --enable-documentation on
the command line, or have "documentation: True" in the ~/.cabal/config
file) then docs get created for each package you install, and the
haddock index/contents of all installed docs gets updated.
>>> Then again, all the links were broken anyway. They all had paths like
>>> "C:\Program Files\Haskell\...whatever", and Mozilla apparently expects
>>> them to say "file://C:/Program Files/Haskell/...whatever". It kept
>>> whining that "the C:\ protocol is not registered"
>>
>> Apparently, haddock links to absolute paths. That's of course not the
>> right thing to do if the path begins with an invalid protocol specifier
>> ("C:"). And it's annoying if you want to move the docs.
>>
>
> I imagine it's so that each package can be placed in a completely arbitrary
> place in the filesystem, and the links still work. I'd actually be surprised
> if these URLs work on Linux either; they don't appear to follow the requisit
> web standards.
You may be right, or perhaps URL syntax is just liberal enough to let
unix style paths work. It's still a bug of course that we're not using
the file:// protocol which makes it not work on windows. I filed it
here:
http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/516#comment:6
Duncan
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
On Thursday 19 August 2010 22:15:59, Andrew Coppin wrote: > > It's something I've always _wanted_ Cabal to do, but this is the first > time I've ever seen it happen. I don't know what particularly I did to > make this happen, and now it seems to be gone, so... > Hm, I just renamed my ~/.cabal/share/doc and installed a new package. cabal created a new doc directory and an index linking to a) the docs of the libs that came with GHC and b) the new package(s), as expected. If you have documentation: True in your config, your cabal should do the same. Double-check and perhaps file a bug report. > > I gathered. Apparently there's no "cabal uninstall" or even merely a > "cabal unregister" yet... (There must surely be a ticket for that > already?) > Probably. But since so far cabal doesn't track what it installed, it would be a major change. > > Well, the worst thing that can happen is I get no documentation, which > isn't exactly a disaster. No, but a major inconvenience :) > I'm just wondering how these files got created > to start with; adding more packages doesn't appear to recreate it. I > suppose I could try reinstalling all of them... > Maybe running cabal haddock on them is enough. > > I imagine it's so that each package can be placed in a completely > arbitrary place in the filesystem, and the links still work. The links won't work if you move the docs around. That's a bit annoying since thus I can't simply rename ~/.cabal/share/doc when I build a new GHC and have the docs for the old GHCs libraries working, I have to change the links in all the .html files too. > I'd actually be surprised if these URLs work on Linux either; they don't > appear to follow the requisit web standards. > I'm not an expert, but I think Module is correct. Anyway, they work. ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Andrew Coppin wrote: I guess I just figured that since Cabal is used by hundreds of millions of people every single day, any little glitches I might have come across have already been seen by at least 1,000 people before me (and hence, the developers already know about it and just haven't had time to fix it yet). Which is why, when filing a report, you scan/search the bug tracker first to make sure you're not filing a duplicate :) Just remember, those thousands of other people are probably thinking the same thing you are. This is well a well-documented phenomenon in more serious circumstances: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect -- Live well, ~wren ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Duncan Coutts wrote: On 18 August 2010 18:13, Andrew Coppin wrote: Then again, all the links were broken anyway. They all had paths like "C:\Program Files\Haskell\...whatever", and Mozilla apparently expects them to say "file://C:/Program Files/Haskell/...whatever". It kept whining that "the C:\ protocol is not registered". Does anybody know anything about this feature? Andrew, I just wanted to let you know that Cabal/cabal-install/hackage has a bug tracker: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ We rely on users reporting bugs so that we know there is anything wrong. There is a guest account so that anyone can file tickets. There is a search feature to see if anyone has reported a similar problem previously (though we prefer getting duplicates than no reports at all). For bugs that really annoy you, you can add your email address to the 'cc list so that you get notified when the ticket is updated. That also counts as a "vote" for that ticket, we take that into account when prioritising things. I guess I just figured that since Cabal is used by hundreds of millions of people every single day, any little glitches I might have come across have already been seen by at least 1,000 people before me (and hence, the developers already know about it and just haven't had time to fix it yet). Then again, I thought the same thing the very first time I tried Gtk2hs, and the Windows build was trivially broken. (I hadn't noticed it, but it was actually a new 2-day-old release.) I know Windows is a rare platform for Haskell, but presumably the Cabal's dependency-related stuff is the same on any platform. (?) I'm also interested to know if the master index works on other platforms too. (I suppose that's really a Haddock issue rather than Cabal.) For that matter, I notice that Hackage seems to be using a much higher version number of Haddock than what I currently have installed. So maybe what I ought to do is go fetch the latest versions of all the tools and see what works. Some of the stuff I'm seeing might be fixed already. My reason in posting here was really to see if others had similar experiences, and see if there are easier ways of getting things done. (And, for example, I now know about the root-cmd command.) Posting actual bug tickets requires a lot of time, energy and effort to determine exactly what the problem is and build a reproducible test case. And, like I said, I kind of assumed that all this stuff must already be "well known", given how popular Cabal is. ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic wrote: On 19 August 2010 03:13, Andrew Coppin wrote: Ben Millwood wrote: I think it's not completely a stupid idea to have profiling default off. I personally do not really enjoy the fact that I compile everything three times nowadays :) Fair enough. However, having documentation off by default is just annoying... My guess is that this is aimed at people who just want to use Haskell software (darcs, xmonad, etc.) and don't actually develop in Haskell. This saves some storage space and also compile times. Mmm, I hadn't thought of that. Then again, if you just want some tool, why not just grab a prebuilt binary? Oh, wait - it's Unix... ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Daniel Fischer wrote:
On Wednesday 18 August 2010 19:13:48, Andrew Coppin wrote:
On that note, I just remembered something else: During the course of
playing with all this Cabal stuff, I discovered that I had somehow
acquired a global package index. As in, an HTML file that links to the
documentation of *all* installed packages, not just the ones that come
with GHC. And when I installed more packages, it seemed to add them to
this index.
Yes, when cabal runs haddock on a package, it generates a comprehensive
index if none is present or expands it with the new docs.
Quite cool that :)
It's something I've always _wanted_ Cabal to do, but this is the first
time I've ever seen it happen. I don't know what particularly I did to
make this happen, and now it seems to be gone, so...
Alas, removing packages doesn't remove them.
Since cabal isn't involved in removing packages, that can't be done.
I gathered. Apparently there's no "cabal uninstall" or even merely a
"cabal unregister" yet... (There must surely be a ticket for that already?)
I tried deleting the file to see if Cabal would rebuild it,
and now I just have no file at all, and no idea how to get it back.
Generally, until you know it's safe to delete, move or rename first, so if
something breaks, it's not gone for good.
Well, the worst thing that can happen is I get no documentation, which
isn't exactly a disaster. I'm just wondering how these files got created
to start with; adding more packages doesn't appear to recreate it. I
suppose I could try reinstalling all of them...
Then again, all the links were broken anyway. They all had paths like
"C:\Program Files\Haskell\...whatever", and Mozilla apparently expects
them to say "file://C:/Program Files/Haskell/...whatever". It kept
whining that "the C:\ protocol is not registered"
Apparently, haddock links to absolute paths. That's of course not the right
thing to do if the path begins with an invalid protocol specifier ("C:").
And it's annoying if you want to move the docs.
I imagine it's so that each package can be placed in a completely
arbitrary place in the filesystem, and the links still work. I'd
actually be surprised if these URLs work on Linux either; they don't
appear to follow the requisit web standards.
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
On 19 August 2010 03:13, Andrew Coppin wrote: > Ben Millwood wrote: >> >> I think it's not completely a stupid idea to have profiling default >> off. I personally do not really enjoy the fact that I compile >> everything three times nowadays :) >> > > Fair enough. However, having documentation off by default is just > annoying... My guess is that this is aimed at people who just want to use Haskell software (darcs, xmonad, etc.) and don't actually develop in Haskell. This saves some storage space and also compile times. -- Ivan Lazar Miljenovic ivan.miljeno...@gmail.com IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
On 18 August 2010 18:13, Andrew Coppin wrote: > Then again, all the links were broken anyway. They all had paths like > "C:\Program Files\Haskell\...whatever", and Mozilla apparently expects them > to say "file://C:/Program Files/Haskell/...whatever". It kept whining that > "the C:\ protocol is not registered". > > Does anybody know anything about this feature? Andrew, I just wanted to let you know that Cabal/cabal-install/hackage has a bug tracker: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ We rely on users reporting bugs so that we know there is anything wrong. There is a guest account so that anyone can file tickets. There is a search feature to see if anyone has reported a similar problem previously (though we prefer getting duplicates than no reports at all). For bugs that really annoy you, you can add your email address to the 'cc list so that you get notified when the ticket is updated. That also counts as a "vote" for that ticket, we take that into account when prioritising things. Thanks! Duncan ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
On Wednesday 18 August 2010 19:13:48, Andrew Coppin wrote:
> Ben Millwood wrote:
> > I think it's not completely a stupid idea to have profiling default
> > off. I personally do not really enjoy the fact that I compile
> > everything three times nowadays :)
>
> Fair enough. However, having documentation off by default is just
> annoying...
>
>
>
> On that note, I just remembered something else: During the course of
> playing with all this Cabal stuff, I discovered that I had somehow
> acquired a global package index. As in, an HTML file that links to the
> documentation of *all* installed packages, not just the ones that come
> with GHC. And when I installed more packages, it seemed to add them to
> this index.
Yes, when cabal runs haddock on a package, it generates a comprehensive
index if none is present or expands it with the new docs.
Quite cool that :)
> Alas, removing packages doesn't remove them.
Since cabal isn't involved in removing packages, that can't be done.
Of course, a `cabal unregister foo' command that took care of all that
would be nice, but so far the cabal devs have had more important things to
do.
> I tried deleting the file to see if Cabal would rebuild it,
> and now I just have no file at all, and no idea how to get it back.
Maybe it's still in the Trashcan? If not, an undelete programme?
Generally, until you know it's safe to delete, move or rename first, so if
something breaks, it's not gone for good.
If your index is not recoverable, I think you'd have to run cabal haddock
on your cabal-installed packages to regenerate it.
>
> Then again, all the links were broken anyway. They all had paths like
> "C:\Program Files\Haskell\...whatever", and Mozilla apparently expects
> them to say "file://C:/Program Files/Haskell/...whatever". It kept
> whining that "the C:\ protocol is not registered".
>
> Does anybody know anything about this feature?
>
Apparently, haddock links to absolute paths. That's of course not the right
thing to do if the path begins with an invalid protocol specifier ("C:").
And it's annoying if you want to move the docs.
As a workaround, you could replace all 'HREF="C:' with 'HREF="file://C:' in
the index.html (but if '\' isn't a valid path separator in urls, that
probably wouldn't work and replacing all '\'s with '/' would be wrong).
Of course that should be dealt with properly in haddock, file a bug report.
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Ben Millwood wrote: I think it's not completely a stupid idea to have profiling default off. I personally do not really enjoy the fact that I compile everything three times nowadays :) Fair enough. However, having documentation off by default is just annoying... On that note, I just remembered something else: During the course of playing with all this Cabal stuff, I discovered that I had somehow acquired a global package index. As in, an HTML file that links to the documentation of *all* installed packages, not just the ones that come with GHC. And when I installed more packages, it seemed to add them to this index. Alas, removing packages doesn't remove them. I tried deleting the file to see if Cabal would rebuild it, and now I just have no file at all, and no idea how to get it back. Then again, all the links were broken anyway. They all had paths like "C:\Program Files\Haskell\...whatever", and Mozilla apparently expects them to say "file://C:/Program Files/Haskell/...whatever". It kept whining that "the C:\ protocol is not registered". Does anybody know anything about this feature? ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 8:31 AM, Evan Laforge wrote: > I was trying to turn on --global by default user-install: False I think it's not completely a stupid idea to have profiling default off. I personally do not really enjoy the fact that I compile everything three times nowadays :) ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
> It sounds to me like your life would be a lot easier if you knew about > cabal-install's root-cmd configuration parameter! Open your > .cabal/config file and uncomment and set: > > root-cmd: sudo I didn't know about this either. As an aside, is the cabal config file documented at all? I haven't been able to find any. That means it's easy to accidentally install everything with no documentation (why is that the default?) or without profiling libs, which will mess you up much later when you want profiling and now dependency checking won't help you reinstall everything. I was trying to turn on --global by default (which is another one of those traps... Setup.hs defaults to global but cabal doesn't... and ~/.cabal is not the most obvious place to look for your installed stuff), but couldn't find a way, and no documentation telling me how. Is there a way? And... is the 'cabal' command supposed to have a man page? ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
Ben Millwood wrote: It sounds to me like your life would be a lot easier if you knew about cabal-install's root-cmd configuration parameter! Open your .cabal/config file and uncomment and set: root-cmd: sudo Now cabal-install will take up root permissions when and only when necessary :) I only found this out after asking #haskell about similar problems. Perhaps it should be more prominent somehow. Thank you for that. I was hoping such a thing had been implemented somewhere... ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
Re: [Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 8:27 PM, Andrew Coppin wrote: > The amusing part is, if you "sudo cabal > install" so it has permission to put the installed files into place, it then > uses root's configuration file instead. *sigh* Well anyway, I managed to > work around that. But... Cabal *still* fails to find Alex or Happy, even > though they're now in the search path. > > Oh, wait. They're in *my* search path. They're not in root's search path. > [...] It sounds to me like your life would be a lot easier if you knew about cabal-install's root-cmd configuration parameter! Open your .cabal/config file and uncomment and set: root-cmd: sudo Now cabal-install will take up root permissions when and only when necessary :) I only found this out after asking #haskell about similar problems. Perhaps it should be more prominent somehow. ___ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
[Haskell-cafe] A cabal odyssey
And so today, just for giggles, I tried to get Sifflet to work. Along the way, I encountered a number of... "glitches", if you will. First of all, I tried to get it to work on Windows. I fired up a new Windows VM and installed Haskell Platform 2010.1.0.0. It seems that (finally) this includes the cabal-install tool, which is nice. It seems it includes cabal-install 0.8.0, so as soon as I tried "cabal update", it tells me a new version is available. It claims I just need to "cabal install cabal-install" (which is amusingly riddle-like). Unfortunately, although doing this *does work*, the new cabal.exe is installed lower down the search path than the existing one, so you still get the old version (unless you manually fiddle with the search path). In fact, it seems that the HP install folder is higher up the search path than the "global" binary target, which is higher than the "local" binary target. It seems to me like this ought to be the other way around. The next problem is that "cabal install sifflet" gets mighty confused and outright fails. Basically it can't figure out how to resolve all the dependencies. It seems that Sifflet demands GTK 0.11.0 (i.e., gtk-0.11.0, pango-0.11.0, glib-0.11.0, etc.) However, Cabal looks at gtk-0.11.0, sees it depends on (say) "glib-0.11.*", and wants to use glib-0.11.1 (the latest one). But then Sifflet wants glib-0.11.0, not glib-0.11.1, and it seems Cabal just can't figure out what the heck to do. Which is slightly surprising, really. The solution (of sorts) is to painstakingly resolve the dependencies by hand, by asking Cabal to install the correct packages one at a time in the correct order. (I still love the way Gtk2hs *actually compiles* on Windows now. That's pretty sweet!) That reminds me. What the heck is actually *in* file 126? I don't know why, but compiling file 126 (Graphics.UI.Gtk.Gdk.Cursor) takes up 75% of the entire Gtk2hs build time! What's that all about? Anyway, having finally built Gtk2hs version 0.11.0 successfully, I continued trying to get Sifflet working... only to discover it wants the "curl" package. And when I ask Cabal to build it, it just retorts that it has a configure script. *sigh* So that's the end of that. I have absolutely no idea why a tool like Sifflet would need access to the Curl library. Presumably this is just another one of those obscure dependency-chasing artifacts that happen from time to time? (After dealing with Linux, I'm used to this kind of weirdness.) OK, so it's only possible to run Sifflet under Linux. Let's give that a try... So I fire up a new OpenSUSE VM. I quickly discovered that gtk seems to want Alex and Happy, but cabal-install is defaulting to doing a "local" rather than "global" install, and thereafter it can't "find" Alex or Happy, even though they're installed. (Yeah, great, thanks for that...) So I rewind the VM, build the latest version of cabal-install, and edit the configuration to do global installs instead of local. The amusing part is, if you "sudo cabal install" so it has permission to put the installed files into place, it then uses root's configuration file instead. *sigh* Well anyway, I managed to work around that. But... Cabal *still* fails to find Alex or Happy, even though they're now in the search path. Oh, wait. They're in *my* search path. They're not in root's search path. (As per good security practise, root's search path is rather short.) I can pass some CLI switches to tell it where these are, but then gtk2hs-buildtools makes a whole bunch of stuff which Cabal also can't find. Eventually, the easiest thing I could come up with was to do "cabal unpack" to get a source tree, configure and build as me, and sudo for the install. Except that then it tries to reconfigure...? Wuh? So instead of "sudo cabal install", I tried "sudo runhaskell Setup install", which works just fine (although obviously it's rather wordy!) So, I manually hold Cabal's hand through the process of building all the 0.11.0 packages one at a time, in a way that it can find all the stuff at configure-time. Gosh this is a faff! Well anyway, it worked. Trips over when I reach Curl, but that's because I need to ask YaST to install the curl-devel package. And, finally, I can build and install Sifflet itself. After 4 hours or so of typing commands, it was nice to do some stuff with my mouse. ;-) I spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to build high-order functions before I discovered that you can't. Still, the stated design goal of Sifflet is "to teach beginners about recursion". Clearly it's design achieves this goal quite well. Equally clearly, Haskell has damaged my mind. I actually cannot think of *any* interesting low-order functions! 5 years of programming in Pascal with low-order *monomorphic* functions, and today I can't think of a single interesting use for such a thing. ;-) Heh, well anyway... I don't know how many of the thing
