Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-18 Thread Sean Leather
On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 01:46, Don Stewart wrote:

 leather:
 
  2. What is the difference between Haskell and the Haskell Platform? I
 see
  one or the other in various places. To get from www.haskell.org to
 downloading
  the Mac software, I go through Download Haskell, Get the Haskell
 Platform 
  Mac, and Download Haskell for Mac OS X (intel).

 Well, for one, we have characterized the difference between GHC and the
 Haskell Platform as:

GHC is to the HP  as  Linux Kernel is to Linux

 Now, Haskell for newcomers might mean toolchain on my machine --
 which is the Haskell Platform. Or it might mean the language.

 We try to ensure advertising for the HP makes it simple: Download
 Haskell, but documentation pages carefully describe the fact that the
 HP is a development environment for the Haskell language.


It just occurred to me to check what Sun/Oracle does for Java. I guess what
is on haskell.org is no worse than what is on http://java.com/en/download/ .
But perhaps answering such questions as What is Haskell? or Why download
the Haskell Platform? as well as a short blurb about the use of the terms
Haskell and Haskell Platform would help.

Personally, I prefer to separate the name of the language from the name of
the development tools, because I think that causes unnecessary confusion.
End-users do not need to care about Haskell, unlike Java since they need the
JRE, so potential developers and students are the audience. This group needs
the Haskell Platform for developing with Haskell, and having the tools
referred to as Haskell Platform is clear enough (imho) without having to
call the tools Haskell.

In the end, whatever the choice, the language on haskell.org should probably
be somewhat more consistent.

Sean
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-18 Thread Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
Sean Leather leat...@cs.uu.nl writes:
 Personally, I prefer to separate the name of the language from the name of
 the development tools, because I think that causes unnecessary confusion.
 End-users do not need to care about Haskell, unlike Java since they need the
 JRE, so potential developers and students are the audience. This group needs
 the Haskell Platform for developing with Haskell, and having the tools
 referred to as Haskell Platform is clear enough (imho) without having to
 call the tools Haskell.

I think the partial confusion here is that most newer languages have
the same name as their defacto implementation (Python [though the
implementation is technically CPython], Perl, Ruby, etc.).

Whilst Haskell has other implementations apart from GHC, none of the
others are as featureful, etc.  So pretty much if you want Haskell,
then you want GHC.

-- 
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
ivan.miljeno...@gmail.com
IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-17 Thread Don Stewart
leather:
 
 2. What is the difference between Haskell and the Haskell Platform? I see
 one or the other in various places. To get from www.haskell.org to downloading
 the Mac software, I go through Download Haskell, Get the Haskell Platform 
 Mac, and Download Haskell for Mac OS X (intel).

Well, for one, we have characterized the difference between GHC and the
Haskell Platform as:

GHC is to the HP  as  Linux Kernel is to Linux

Now, Haskell for newcomers might mean toolchain on my machine --
which is the Haskell Platform. Or it might mean the language.

We try to ensure advertising for the HP makes it simple: Download
Haskell, but documentation pages carefully describe the fact that the
HP is a development environment for the Haskell language.

 3. By looking at http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/mac.html , I have no idea
 what I'm going to get when I click the Download Haskell for Mac OS X (intel)
 link. It would be nice to know what I'm getting myself into before I commit to
 waiting for this 137.9 MB file. Thanks to the wonder of deep links, one can
 also not be expected to traverse the path that I did in #2. Similarly, if I
 come to this link directly, I have no easy way of navigating to try to figure
 out what Haskell or GHC is.


That's a bug. I've filed a ticket to fix the website.

 
-- Don
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-08 Thread Ketil Malde
Daniel Fischer daniel.is.fisc...@web.de writes:

 However, I wanted to know what the etc stood for, with taking care of 
 dependencies and uninstalling already mentioned. Upgrading, yes, but what 
 else?

Keeping the system consistent with other systems?  If I use the system
packages, I can have a higher confidence that what works for me will
also work for users of the same distro.  And converse, so there'll be
more eyeballs per problem.

Reducing the load on system admins?  Although I might know the pros and
cons of upgrading to GHC 6.12.y from .x, my IT department are not likely
to.  And they have to support a dozen different languages for several
dozen users.  They are also more likely to trust things they get from
apt or yum repos, than tarballs off some random web site.

Centrally managed bug reporting system?  Not that Launchpad is awsomely
responsive, but at least there's *something*.

Support, in the sense that somebody is actually responsible for the
package?  (Unlike Hackage, where some packages have a
closed-for-nonsubscribers mailing list as 'maintainer'.)

(Probably 'etc.', but I can't think of more points at the moment.)

-k
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-08 Thread Ivan Miljenovic
On 8 April 2010 16:29, Ketil Malde ke...@malde.org wrote:
 Support, in the sense that somebody is actually responsible for the
 package?  (Unlike Hackage, where some packages have a
 closed-for-nonsubscribers mailing list as 'maintainer'.)

Which packages are these?  I don't recall seeing any with this kind of
maintainer address...

-- 
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
ivan.miljeno...@gmail.com
IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-08 Thread Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH

On Apr 8, 2010, at 02:47 , Ivan Miljenovic wrote:

On 8 April 2010 16:29, Ketil Malde ke...@malde.org wrote:

Support, in the sense that somebody is actually responsible for the
package?  (Unlike Hackage, where some packages have a
closed-for-nonsubscribers mailing list as 'maintainer'.)


Which packages are these?  I don't recall seeing any with this kind of
maintainer address...



-cafe is closed for posting by nonmembers, as a spam limiter.  I'm  
pretty sure that's what he meant.


--
brandon s. allbery [solaris,freebsd,perl,pugs,haskell] allb...@kf8nh.com
system administrator [openafs,heimdal,too many hats] allb...@ece.cmu.edu
electrical and computer engineering, carnegie mellon universityKF8NH




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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-08 Thread Ketil Malde

Ivan Miljenovic ivan.miljeno...@gmail.com writes:

 Which packages are these?  I don't recall seeing any with this kind of
 maintainer address...

http://www.google.no/search?q=site%3Ahackage.haskell.org+maintainer+libraries%40haskell.org

-k
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-08 Thread Gregory Collins
Jason Dagit da...@codersbase.com writes:

 If I understand correctly, the issue at hand is that the uninstaller
 step is removing previous libraries and ghc?

Not GHC; the HP installer removes old copies of the platform
libraries. That's likely to break your old GHC setup though. What should
it do instead?

G
-- 
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-08 Thread Don Stewart
greg:
 Jason Dagit da...@codersbase.com writes:
 
  If I understand correctly, the issue at hand is that the uninstaller
  step is removing previous libraries and ghc?
 
 Not GHC; the HP installer removes old copies of the platform
 libraries. That's likely to break your old GHC setup though. What should
 it do instead?

Can we install these in parallel somehow? A la lib/ghc-6.8.2
lib/ghc-6.6.1 lib/ghc-6.10.2 lib/ghc-6.12.1

?
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-07 Thread Malcolm Wallace

   The platform installer is supposed to erase previous platform
   editions before it installs itself.


I would consider that a serious bug.

The Haskell Platform is not like a standard user application, where it  
would be reasonable to have only one version installed at a time.  If  
you are a software developer, it is frequently essential to have  
several different versions of the development environment (compiler +  
libraries) installed simultaneously, so that you can adequately  
support users who have different versions of your own software.


Regards,
Malcolm

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-07 Thread Gregory Collins
Malcolm Wallace malcolm.wall...@cs.york.ac.uk writes:

The platform installer is supposed to erase previous platform
editions before it installs itself.

 I would consider that a serious bug.

Lacking a feature I would consider essential /= a bug in my opinion,
especially when the desirability of the feature is in question. I have
enough legitimate bugs to deal with as it stands.


 The Haskell Platform is not like a standard user application, where it
 would be reasonable to have only one version installed at a time.  If
 you are a software developer, it is frequently essential to have
 several different versions of the development environment (compiler +
 libraries) installed simultaneously, so that you can adequately
 support users who have different versions of your own software.

We'll have to disagree here; I'd consider this a power user feature.
After all, the platform libs can be acquired by other means than the
turnkey binary installer. The OSX package system is so insane that I can
barely get the thing working to begin with, even after making a bunch of
simplifying assumptions (like we don't need to support multiple
platform installations).

That said, I'm not at all opposed to having this feature, if you can
explain to me (or even better, provide code for) a reasonable scheme for
doing it that isn't going to make this project even more brittle than it
already is.

G
-- 
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-07 Thread Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
Malcolm Wallace malcolm.wall...@cs.york.ac.uk writes:
 The Haskell Platform is not like a standard user application, where it
 would be reasonable to have only one version installed at a time.

As far as I know, most Linux distributions only let you install one
version of GHC at a time; we do this with Gentoo because despite there
being some distribution-specific architecture in place to be able to
switch between compilers (used for GCC, Ruby, Python, etc.) we haven't
resolved how to deal with dependency problems when a library was built
with one version of GHC and then you try to build something that depends
upon it with another version of GHC (since the package manager _knows_
that the dependency is installed, yet GHC is vehement that it knows
nothing about it).

-- 
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
ivan.miljeno...@gmail.com
IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-07 Thread Daniel Fischer
Am Mittwoch 07 April 2010 23:43:05 schrieb Ivan Lazar Miljenovic:
 Malcolm Wallace malcolm.wall...@cs.york.ac.uk writes:
  The Haskell Platform is not like a standard user application, where it
  would be reasonable to have only one version installed at a time.

 As far as I know, most Linux distributions only let you install one
 version of GHC at a time;

I currently have 6.10.1, 6.10.3 and 6.12.1 installed (openSuSe 11.1), no 
problem.
On my previous computer (SuSE 8.2), I had every release from 6.2.2 to 
6.8.2, no problem either.

 we do this with Gentoo because despite there
 being some distribution-specific architecture in place to be able to
 switch between compilers (used for GCC, Ruby, Python, etc.) we haven't
 resolved how to deal with dependency problems when a library was built
 with one version of GHC and then you try to build something that depends
 upon it with another version of GHC (since the package manager _knows_
 that the dependency is installed, yet GHC is vehement that it knows
 nothing about it).

Ah, but one shouldn't use a package manager for Haskell packages.
Cabal is far superior to all of them 8-)
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-07 Thread Malcolm Wallace

  The platform installer is supposed to erase previous platform
  editions before it installs itself.


I would consider that a serious bug.


Lacking a feature I would consider essential /= a bug in my  
opinion,

especially when the desirability of the feature is in question.


It is not merely that a feature is lacking.  Removing software from my  
machine without my knowledge or permission is just wrong.  (I was  
bitten by this once before, with a ghc installer for Mac.  It removed  
the previous working ghc, without telling me.  Then I discovered that  
a library I needed could not be compiled by the new version of ghc.  
The old ghc installer then refused to delete the new ghc and revert to  
the old one, because it could not imagine why anyone would want to  
downgrade.)


Regards,
Malcolm

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-07 Thread Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
Daniel Fischer daniel.is.fisc...@web.de writes:
 I currently have 6.10.1, 6.10.3 and 6.12.1 installed (openSuSe 11.1), no 
 problem.
 On my previous computer (SuSE 8.2), I had every release from 6.2.2 to 
 6.8.2, no problem either.

Using system packages?

 Ah, but one shouldn't use a package manager for Haskell packages.
 Cabal is far superior to all of them 8-)

Except for the fact that you can't uninstall, check for
non-Haskell-library dependencies, etc. ...

-- 
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
ivan.miljeno...@gmail.com
IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-07 Thread Daniel Fischer
Am Donnerstag 08 April 2010 00:09:34 schrieb Ivan Lazar Miljenovic:
 Daniel Fischer daniel.is.fisc...@web.de writes:
  I currently have 6.10.1, 6.10.3 and 6.12.1 installed (openSuSe 11.1),
  no problem.
  On my previous computer (SuSE 8.2), I had every release from 6.2.2 to
  6.8.2, no problem either.

 Using system packages?

Of course not, I'm a source freak (except the 6.10.1, one has to get 
started somehow).


  Ah, but one shouldn't use a package manager for Haskell packages.
  Cabal is far superior to all of them 8-)

 Except for the fact that you can't uninstall,

Well, I can uninstall manually if I really want to, but disk space isn't 
that scarce yet.

 check for non-Haskell-library dependencies,

True, a distro package manager could do that.
However, so far I've found the ease of managing Haskell packages via cabal-
install worth much more than taking care of the occasional non-Haskell 
dependency.

 etc. ...

Such as?
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-07 Thread Gregory Collins
Malcolm Wallace malcolm.wall...@cs.york.ac.uk writes:

   The platform installer is supposed to erase previous platform
   editions before it installs itself.

 I would consider that a serious bug.

 Lacking a feature I would consider essential /= a bug in my opinion,
 especially when the desirability of the feature is in question.

 It is not merely that a feature is lacking.  Removing software from my
 machine without my knowledge or permission is just wrong.  (I was
 bitten by this once before, with a ghc installer for Mac.  It removed
 the previous working ghc, without telling me.  Then I discovered that
 a library I needed could not be compiled by the new version of ghc.
 The old ghc installer then refused to delete the new ghc and revert to
 the old one, because it could not imagine why anyone would want to
 downgrade.)

I get where you're coming from, however: almost every binary installer
on every platform I've ever used performs a forcible package upgrade
unless the package maintainer takes special pains to do otherwise.

Like I said, I'm not opposed to doing something about this, if something
simple solves it without adding a significant complexity overhead. Is it
enough to do what GHC does? I.e. a
/Library/Frameworks/HaskellPlatform.framework/Versions directory with
appropriate symlinks, as well as a bundled, optional uninstaller script
which zaps everything?

G
-- 
Gregory Collins g...@gregorycollins.net
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-07 Thread Ivan Miljenovic
On 8 April 2010 08:25, Daniel Fischer daniel.is.fisc...@web.de wrote:
 Am Donnerstag 08 April 2010 00:09:34 schrieb Ivan Lazar Miljenovic:
 etc. ...

 Such as?

To avoid stating these all over again:
http://ivanmiljenovic.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/repeat-after-me-cabal-is-not-a-package-manager/
(specifically the section titled Why you should use your
distribution’s package management system).

-- 
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
ivan.miljeno...@gmail.com
IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-07 Thread Daniel Fischer
Am Donnerstag 08 April 2010 01:47:19 schrieb Ivan Miljenovic:
 On 8 April 2010 08:25, Daniel Fischer daniel.is.fisc...@web.de wrote:
  Am Donnerstag 08 April 2010 00:09:34 schrieb Ivan Lazar Miljenovic:
  etc. ...
 
  Such as?

 To avoid stating these all over again:
 http://ivanmiljenovic.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/repeat-after-me-cabal-is-
not-a-package-manager/ (specifically the section titled Why you should
 use your
 distribution’s package management system).

Fair enough, Cabal/Hackage/cabal-install certainly isn't a package manager 
(good that I never claimed it was :), I just use it to manage my Haskell 
source packages; no, I won't stop doing that, I'm not going to switch 
distros, I like SuSE, I didn't like Ubuntu or sidux, I might give Gentoo a 
try when I buy my next computer, though).

However, I wanted to know what the etc stood for, with taking care of 
dependencies and uninstalling already mentioned. Upgrading, yes, but what 
else?
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-07 Thread Ivan Miljenovic
On 8 April 2010 10:41, Daniel Fischer daniel.is.fisc...@web.de wrote:
 However, I wanted to know what the etc stood for, with taking care of
 dependencies and uninstalling already mentioned. Upgrading, yes, but what
 else?

Patching, bug fixing, stuff like that.

-- 
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
ivan.miljeno...@gmail.com
IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-07 Thread Jason Dagit
On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Malcolm Wallace 
malcolm.wall...@cs.york.ac.uk wrote:

  The platform installer is supposed to erase previous platform
  editions before it installs itself.


 I would consider that a serious bug.


 Lacking a feature I would consider essential /= a bug in my opinion,
 especially when the desirability of the feature is in question.


 It is not merely that a feature is lacking.  Removing software from my
 machine without my knowledge or permission is just wrong.  (I was bitten by
 this once before, with a ghc installer for Mac.  It removed the previous
 working ghc, without telling me.  Then I discovered that a library I needed
 could not be compiled by the new version of ghc. The old ghc installer then
 refused to delete the new ghc and revert to the old one, because it could
 not imagine why anyone would want to downgrade.)


If I understand correctly, the issue at hand is that the uninstaller step is
removing previous libraries and ghc?

If so, then I completely agree with Malcolm here.  Having the installer only
allow one version of ghc means I'll keep using the tarball provided by GHC
HQ instead of the nice shiny installer for the HP.  I need to be able to
test things on multiple GHC versions for the foreseeable future.

I have a workaround, but I implore you to please kindly reconsider your
stance here.

Jason
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[Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-06 Thread Sean Leather
1. Why can't the platform download site be hosted on www.haskell.org instead
of hackage.haskell.org? I see that there's a redirect, but (imho) it would
be ideal to have www.haskell.org/platform be the standard URL in my browser.
It is easier to remember (for typing) and more obvious (for appearances).

2. What is the difference between Haskell and the Haskell Platform? I
see one or the other in various places. To get from www.haskell.org to
downloading the Mac software, I go through Download Haskell, Get the
Haskell Platform  Mac, and Download Haskell for Mac OS X (intel).

3. By looking at http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/mac.html , I have no
idea what I'm going to get when I click the Download Haskell for Mac OS X
(intel) link. It would be nice to know what I'm getting myself into before
I commit to waiting for this 137.9 MB file. Thanks to the wonder of deep
links, one can also not be expected to traverse the path that I did in #2.
Similarly, if I come to this link directly, I have no easy way of navigating
to try to figure out what Haskell or GHC is.

4. The current link for the Mac image points to
http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/2010.1.0.0/haskell-platform-2010.1.0.1-i386.dmg.
Note the inconsistency between the version in the directory and file
names.

5. The directions on http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/mac.html say:

  After downloading:
* Open the .dmg file
* Follow the install instructions

  I see no install instructions in the .dmg file. I only see the following
files:
* GHC-6.12.1-i386.pkg
* Haskell Platform 2010.1.0.1.pkg
* Uninstall GHC

6. Since there are no install instructions, I am not sure which .pkg to
install first. Of course, fix #3 and you hopefully fix this one.

7. Why can't I have a single .pkg file? Why do I have an Uninstall GHC and
not an Uninstall Haskell Platform?

--

I don't expect all of the above to necessarily have a direct solution. They
are just my observations to share. Some of them are from the point of view
of a newcomer, and some are from a perfectionist.

Regards,
Sean
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-06 Thread Don Stewart
leather:
 1. Why can't the platform download site be hosted on www.haskell.org instead 
 of
 hackage.haskell.org? I see that there's a redirect, but (imho) it would be
 ideal to have www.haskell.org/platform be the standard URL in my browser. It 
 is
 easier to remember (for typing) and more obvious (for appearances).

It's a different server that we have better physical access to (i.e. I
can check the logs).
  
 2. What is the difference between Haskell and the Haskell Platform? I see
 one or the other in various places. To get from www.haskell.org to downloading
 the Mac software, I go through Download Haskell, Get the Haskell Platform 
 Mac, and Download Haskell for Mac OS X (intel).
 
 3. By looking at http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/mac.html , I have no idea
 what I'm going to get when I click the Download Haskell for Mac OS X (intel)
 link. It would be nice to know what I'm getting myself into before I commit to
 waiting for this 137.9 MB file. Thanks to the wonder of deep links, one can
 also not be expected to traverse the path that I did in #2. Similarly, if I
 come to this link directly, I have no easy way of navigating to try to figure
 out what Haskell or GHC is.
 
 4. The current link for the Mac image points to http://hackage.haskell.org/
 platform/2010.1.0.0/haskell-platform-2010.1.0.1-i386.dmg . Note the
 inconsistency between the version in the directory and file names.
 
 5. The directions on http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/mac.html say:
 
   After downloading:
 * Open the .dmg file
 * Follow the install instructions
 
   I see no install instructions in the .dmg file. I only see the following
 files:
 * GHC-6.12.1-i386.pkg
 * Haskell Platform 2010.1.0.1.pkg
 * Uninstall GHC
 
 6. Since there are no install instructions, I am not sure which .pkg to
 install first. Of course, fix #3 and you hopefully fix this one.
 
 7. Why can't I have a single .pkg file? Why do I have an Uninstall GHC and
 not an Uninstall Haskell Platform?
 
 --
 
 I don't expect all of the above to necessarily have a direct solution. They 
 are
 just my observations to share. Some of them are from the point of view of a
 newcomer, and some are from a perfectionist.
 

Thanks! I'm about to hop on a plane, but here's the darcs repo for the
download website, if you want to address some of the issues -- e.g.
return navigation links.

http://code.haskell.org/haskell-platform

I'd love patches and improvements to address the concerns above.

-- Don
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-06 Thread Gregory Collins
Sean Leather leat...@cs.uu.nl writes:

 4. The current link for the Mac image points to
 http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/2010.1.0.0/haskell-platform-2010.1.0.1-i386.dmg
 . Note the inconsistency between the version in the directory and file
 names.

You can think of that one as the second edition of the 2010.1 beta
version. Agree that the directories should match. Too bad the installer
still doesn't work -- I'm working on it everyone, but the Mac installer
system is incredibly crufty and broken, and Snow Leopard broke a lot of
stuff for me.


 5. The directions on http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/mac.html say:

   After downloading:
     * Open the .dmg file
     * Follow the install instructions

   I see no install instructions in the .dmg file. I only see the following 
 files:
     * GHC-6.12.1-i386.pkg
     * Haskell Platform 2010.1.0.1.pkg
     * Uninstall GHC

When you mount the .dmg file a Finder window should pop up with the
install instructions in a background image. Let me guess: this isn't
working in Leopard? I should put a readme in there.


 7. Why can't I have a single .pkg file?

Short answer: I can't figure out how, and not for lack of trying,
either. What I do is take the binary installer that the GHC guys build
as a starting point. Despite many hours of reverse-engineering I cannot
for the life of me figure out how to extract the GHC installer package
from the binary metapackage.

My experience has been that if you unxar the metapackage and try to copy
the included package file into a new metapackage, the mac installer
tools barf. Long-term, I'm planning on just building GHC from source so
I can package a one-click installer, but I don't have infinite time for
this project and doing psychic battle with the evil warlocks who cooked
up the Mac installer is a challenge.

If anyone has expertise in this area and a willingness to help, please
contact me off-list.


 Why do I have an Uninstall GHC and not an Uninstall Haskell
 Platform?

The platform installer is supposed to erase previous platform editions
before it installs itself.

G.
-- 
Gregory Collins g...@gregorycollins.net
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-06 Thread Sean Leather
Hi Gregory,

Thanks for the reply.

Gregory Collins wrote:

 Sean Leather writes:

  4. The current link for the Mac image points to
 
 http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/2010.1.0.0/haskell-platform-2010.1.0.1-i386.dmg
  . Note the inconsistency between the version in the directory and file
  names.

 You can think of that one as the second edition of the 2010.1 beta
 version. Agree that the directories should match.


This is, of course, relatively minor. One alternative is to change the
directory name to exclude the lowest version(s), e.g
2010.1/haskell-platform-2010.1.0.1-i386.dmg, so that when new intermediate
versions are uploaded, the directory name still makes sense and doesn't need
to change.

Too bad the installer
 still doesn't work -- I'm working on it everyone, but the Mac installer
 system is incredibly crufty and broken, and Snow Leopard broke a lot of
 stuff for me.


Is it possible to build the installer on a Leopard system/virtual machine
such that it will install on a Snow Leopard system?

 5. The directions on http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/mac.html say:
 
After downloading:
  * Open the .dmg file
  * Follow the install instructions
 
I see no install instructions in the .dmg file. I only see the
 following files:
  * GHC-6.12.1-i386.pkg
  * Haskell Platform 2010.1.0.1.pkg
  * Uninstall GHC

 When you mount the .dmg file a Finder window should pop up with the
 install instructions in a background image. Let me guess: this isn't
 working in Leopard? I should put a readme in there.


Yes, I'm using Leopard. A README file should do the trick.

 7. Why can't I have a single .pkg file?

 Short answer: I can't figure out how, and not for lack of trying,
 either. What I do is take the binary installer that the GHC guys build
 as a starting point. Despite many hours of reverse-engineering I cannot
 for the life of me figure out how to extract the GHC installer package
 from the binary metapackage.


I'm completely ignorant of how the installer packages work, but is it
possible to have one package refer to another? Thus, one installer could
initiate another. Then, at least there is only one click needed for the
whole thing.

My experience has been that if you unxar the metapackage and try to copy
 the included package file into a new metapackage, the mac installer
 tools barf. Long-term, I'm planning on just building GHC from source so
 I can package a one-click installer, but I don't have infinite time for
 this project and doing psychic battle with the evil warlocks who cooked
 up the Mac installer is a challenge.


I see you have the source at
http://github.com/gregorycollins/haskell-platform-osx-installer . I can try
to look at it at some point.

If anyone has expertise in this area and a willingness to help, please
 contact me off-list.


  Why do I have an Uninstall GHC and not an Uninstall Haskell
  Platform?

 The platform installer is supposed to erase previous platform editions
 before it installs itself.


That's good. Is it possible to include an uninstaller as well?

Regards,
Sean
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

2010-04-06 Thread Gregory Collins
Sean Leather leat...@cs.uu.nl writes:

 Too bad the installer
 still doesn't work -- I'm working on it everyone, but the Mac installer
 system is incredibly crufty and broken, and Snow Leopard broke a lot of
 stuff for me.

 Is it possible to build the installer on a Leopard system/virtual
 machine such that it will install on a Snow Leopard system?

I think that's the approach I'm going to have to take. I still have my
Leopard DVD sitting around, I'll try building the thing in a VirtualBox
or maybe even doing a separate Leopard edition of the platform
installer.

  7. Why can't I have a single .pkg file?

 Short answer: I can't figure out how, and not for lack of trying,
 either. What I do is take the binary installer that the GHC guys build
 as a starting point. Despite many hours of reverse-engineering I cannot
 for the life of me figure out how to extract the GHC installer package
 from the binary metapackage.

 I'm completely ignorant of how the installer packages work, but is it
 possible to have one package refer to another? Thus, one installer
 could initiate another. Then, at least there is only one click needed
 for the whole thing.

I don't have a good working solution for this, so the situation will
have to remain status quo (i.e. clicking two installers) for now.


 The platform installer is supposed to erase previous platform
 editions before it installs itself.

 That's good. Is it possible to include an uninstaller as well?

It would be pretty easy to bundle a shell script.

G
-- 
Gregory Collins g...@gregorycollins.net
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