Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-30 Thread Peter Simons
Hi Vagif,

  I fail to see how a fringe bleeding edge linux distro undermines a
  haskell platform.

Arch Linux does not comply to the Haskell Platform. That fact communicates
to users of the distribution: We, the maintainers, don't believe that HP is
relevant. Clearly, this undermines the Haskell Platform, doesn't it?

Take care,
Peter


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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-29 Thread Ramana Kumar
I believe your main question (how do I do my work without wasting time) has
already been answered: use IgnorePkg.

I would like to add, in case you missed it, that there is a mailing list
and community specifically for Haskell on Arch.
Here is the webpage: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ArchHaskell
The [haskell] repository is currently in sync with Hackage and builds with
the latest ghc. (It does not yet include all of Hackage; your help would be
welcome.)
(The [haskell-web] and [haskell-extra] repos include more packages, with
more or less in-sync-ness and omissions due to ghc 7.6 failures.)
Ultimately we do want Arch packages for Haskell packages, because cabal is
not a package manager (see
https://ivanmiljenovic.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/repeat-after-me-cabal-is-not-a-package-manager/
).

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 8:49 PM, timothyho...@seznam.cz wrote:

 Hello,
 Who is in charge of the ghc and haskell packages on Arch linux?  The
 current system isn't working.

 Arch linux tends to update packages very quickly.

 For ghc, always having the latest ghc isn't a good thing.  At least if you
 actually want to get some work done.  A majority of the time the latest GHC
 is unusable. This is because the packages in hackage simply don't keep up.
 With the current ghc version(7.6.1) even some basic packages in hackage are
 not upgraded yet.

 Right now, a large number of other haskell related packages are in the
 arch repos. Other than gtk2hs, I think these packages are pointless
 duplications.  In the other cases, it has been my experience that it is
 simpler to maintain these packages through cabal rather than through
 pacman.  Support for these packages in Arch should probably be dropped.

 If you want to get work done in Arch with haskell, you should only install
 ghc and cabal-install(right now, you'll have to search the Internet for the
 old binaries, because the arch repos usually don't keep the old versions
 around).  Then you should add these packages to IgnorePkg = in
 pacman.conf  this way things won't break every couple of months.  You can
 then choose to upgrade when you wish.

 I hope that someone who is involved with the haskell Arch stuff reads
 this.  The current model needs to be rethought.  Linux should be sane by
 default, but I've lost many many hours learning that arch's relationship
 with haskell is not so :(  Probably the best solution would be to make Arch
 automatically keep two versions of ghc around at any given time.

 Thank you for your time,
 Timothy Hobbs

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-29 Thread Magnus Therning
Hello Timothy,

Now I'm going to run the risk of upsetting you quite a bit by being
completely blunt.

You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your
own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.  You do know *your*
Haskell needs, and you know what *you* would want from a project like
ArchHaskell.  Then however you completely fail to realise that these
are *your needs*, not anyone else's, but still you suggest that
ArchHaskelll is broken because it doesn't provide a system that solves
*your* problems.

I suggest you take your insights of your situation and try to find a
solution that works for you, and it sounds like you're on the way
already with cabal-install.  If you have suggestions on how to improve
ArchHaskell *within the goals of the project* (which includes the
general goals of ArchLinux) that would make ArchHaskell more usable to
you, then you are more than welcome.  However, if all you do is
suggest that we completely change the goals of ArchHaskell because
they don't align with your needs, then we thank you for your input,
but ask you to not hold your breath for any changes.

/M

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 9:49 PM,  timothyho...@seznam.cz wrote:
 Hello,
 Who is in charge of the ghc and haskell packages on Arch linux?  The current
 system isn't working.

 Arch linux tends to update packages very quickly.

 For ghc, always having the latest ghc isn't a good thing.  At least if you
 actually want to get some work done.  A majority of the time the latest GHC
 is unusable. This is because the packages in hackage simply don't keep up.
 With the current ghc version(7.6.1) even some basic packages in hackage are
 not upgraded yet.

 Right now, a large number of other haskell related packages are in the arch
 repos. Other than gtk2hs, I think these packages are pointless duplications.
 In the other cases, it has been my experience that it is simpler to maintain
 these packages through cabal rather than through pacman.  Support for these
 packages in Arch should probably be dropped.

 If you want to get work done in Arch with haskell, you should only install
 ghc and cabal-install(right now, you'll have to search the Internet for the
 old binaries, because the arch repos usually don't keep the old versions
 around).  Then you should add these packages to IgnorePkg = in pacman.conf
 this way things won't break every couple of months.  You can then choose to
 upgrade when you wish.

 I hope that someone who is involved with the haskell Arch stuff reads this.
 The current model needs to be rethought.  Linux should be sane by default,
 but I've lost many many hours learning that arch's relationship with haskell
 is not so :(  Probably the best solution would be to make Arch automatically
 keep two versions of ghc around at any given time.

 Thank you for your time,
 Timothy Hobbs

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-29 Thread Eric Velten de Melo
In his defense, from the perspective of a more or less newbie in the
subject matter, I had quite a bit of trouble using Haskell under Arch.
Not that it is so much better in other systems, I wouldn't know.

I often was in the position to decide whether to use cabal-install,
arch-haskell repositories or official repositories and many times the
thing that worked for me was a mix of everything, which is quite
sub-optimal, although more or less working for me at the moment. I'm
not saying that this is because the way Arch works or the way Cabal is
designed is wrong. Maybe it is because I'm not figuring it out. Some
people say you should not use cabal-install as a package manager,
because it is not supposed to be one. Again, other people say
arch-haskell repositories are very buggy at the moment and one should
install only cabal-install and ghc from the official repositories and
only use cabal-install for the rest.

Just telling my experience so far: I often have had to struggle
between cabal dependency hell and non-working packages in the
repositories. Either something is very wrong with the way things are
right now or I'm doing everything wrong (which is more likely).

I am still not in the condition of proposing things myself, but I
don't think this is fair treatment so far to someone that is proposing
a compromise solution to a problem he found. Anyway, hopefully this
would be better clarified in the arch-haskell mailing list.

2012/10/29 Magnus Therning mag...@therning.org:
 Hello Timothy,

 Now I'm going to run the risk of upsetting you quite a bit by being
 completely blunt.

 You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your
 own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.  You do know *your*
 Haskell needs, and you know what *you* would want from a project like
 ArchHaskell.  Then however you completely fail to realise that these
 are *your needs*, not anyone else's, but still you suggest that
 ArchHaskelll is broken because it doesn't provide a system that solves
 *your* problems.

 I suggest you take your insights of your situation and try to find a
 solution that works for you, and it sounds like you're on the way
 already with cabal-install.  If you have suggestions on how to improve
 ArchHaskell *within the goals of the project* (which includes the
 general goals of ArchLinux) that would make ArchHaskell more usable to
 you, then you are more than welcome.  However, if all you do is
 suggest that we completely change the goals of ArchHaskell because
 they don't align with your needs, then we thank you for your input,
 but ask you to not hold your breath for any changes.

 /M

 On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 9:49 PM,  timothyho...@seznam.cz wrote:
 Hello,
 Who is in charge of the ghc and haskell packages on Arch linux?  The current
 system isn't working.

 Arch linux tends to update packages very quickly.

 For ghc, always having the latest ghc isn't a good thing.  At least if you
 actually want to get some work done.  A majority of the time the latest GHC
 is unusable. This is because the packages in hackage simply don't keep up.
 With the current ghc version(7.6.1) even some basic packages in hackage are
 not upgraded yet.

 Right now, a large number of other haskell related packages are in the arch
 repos. Other than gtk2hs, I think these packages are pointless duplications.
 In the other cases, it has been my experience that it is simpler to maintain
 these packages through cabal rather than through pacman.  Support for these
 packages in Arch should probably be dropped.

 If you want to get work done in Arch with haskell, you should only install
 ghc and cabal-install(right now, you'll have to search the Internet for the
 old binaries, because the arch repos usually don't keep the old versions
 around).  Then you should add these packages to IgnorePkg = in pacman.conf
 this way things won't break every couple of months.  You can then choose to
 upgrade when you wish.

 I hope that someone who is involved with the haskell Arch stuff reads this.
 The current model needs to be rethought.  Linux should be sane by default,
 but I've lost many many hours learning that arch's relationship with haskell
 is not so :(  Probably the best solution would be to make Arch automatically
 keep two versions of ghc around at any given time.

 Thank you for your time,
 Timothy Hobbs

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 email: mag...@therning.org   jabber: mag...@therning.org
 twitter: magthe   http://therning.org/magnus

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-29 Thread Brandon Allbery
On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 5:56 AM, Magnus Therning mag...@therning.orgwrote:

 Now I'm going to run the risk of upsetting you quite a bit by being
 completely blunt.


Indeed.


 You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your
 own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.  You do know *your*


May I ask you a question, then?

Does the Haskell Platform have any reason to exist?

Supposedly, the Haskell community backs the Haskell Platform as the way
that most users should be using the Platform.  Yet we have here a vendor
platform which does not support it, and newcomers who notice this and
question it are chastised for not thinking about the needs of other people.
 This suggests that the Haskell Platform is unimportant and perhaps
disruptive to some significant group of people... is this so?

And then, looking at your own message, I must ask:  have you considered
that the Platform is aimed at the great many people who do not have large
amounts of expertise maintaining their own personal Haskell ecosystem.  Or
are your needs so important that these people must in fact be told to deal?

Or, to phrase in your own words:

You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your
 own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.


-- 
brandon s allbery kf8nh   sine nomine associates
allber...@gmail.com  ballb...@sinenomine.net
unix/linux, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure  http://sinenomine.net
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-29 Thread Ramana Kumar
If all you want is the Haskell Platform, I believe the Arch policy is to
provide all those packages in the official [extra] repository.
(If those are broken because of the new ghc, just use IgnorePkg to avoid
the ghc update.)
The [haskell] and other ArchHaskell repos are for the rest of Hackage
that's not in the Platform.

On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 1:53 PM, Brandon Allbery allber...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 5:56 AM, Magnus Therning mag...@therning.orgwrote:

 Now I'm going to run the risk of upsetting you quite a bit by being
 completely blunt.


 Indeed.


 You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your
 own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.  You do know *your*


 May I ask you a question, then?

 Does the Haskell Platform have any reason to exist?

 Supposedly, the Haskell community backs the Haskell Platform as the way
 that most users should be using the Platform.  Yet we have here a vendor
 platform which does not support it, and newcomers who notice this and
 question it are chastised for not thinking about the needs of other people.
  This suggests that the Haskell Platform is unimportant and perhaps
 disruptive to some significant group of people... is this so?

 And then, looking at your own message, I must ask:  have you considered
 that the Platform is aimed at the great many people who do not have large
 amounts of expertise maintaining their own personal Haskell ecosystem.  Or
 are your needs so important that these people must in fact be told to deal?

 Or, to phrase in your own words:

 You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your
 own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.


 --
 brandon s allbery kf8nh   sine nomine
 associates
 allber...@gmail.com
 ballb...@sinenomine.net
 unix/linux, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure
 http://sinenomine.net


 ___
 Haskell-Cafe mailing list
 Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-29 Thread Magnus Therning
Please stay on topic, this is *not* a discussion about Haskell
Platform[1], it's a discussion on ArchHaskell[2].  Please read up on
the mailing list archives first, and then, if you still feel there's a
need to discuss HP in ArchHaskell (which isn't the same thing as Arch
itself) then please start a new thread.

/M

[1]: http://www.haskell.org/platform/
[2]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ArchHaskell

On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 2:53 PM, Brandon Allbery allber...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 5:56 AM, Magnus Therning mag...@therning.org
 wrote:

 Now I'm going to run the risk of upsetting you quite a bit by being
 completely blunt.


 Indeed.


 You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your
 own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.  You do know *your*


 May I ask you a question, then?

 Does the Haskell Platform have any reason to exist?

 Supposedly, the Haskell community backs the Haskell Platform as the way that
 most users should be using the Platform.  Yet we have here a vendor platform
 which does not support it, and newcomers who notice this and question it are
 chastised for not thinking about the needs of other people.  This suggests
 that the Haskell Platform is unimportant and perhaps disruptive to some
 significant group of people... is this so?

 And then, looking at your own message, I must ask:  have you considered that
 the Platform is aimed at the great many people who do not have large amounts
 of expertise maintaining their own personal Haskell ecosystem.  Or are your
 needs so important that these people must in fact be told to deal?

 Or, to phrase in your own words:

 You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your
 own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.


 --
 brandon s allbery kf8nh   sine nomine associates
 allber...@gmail.com  ballb...@sinenomine.net
 unix/linux, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure  http://sinenomine.net




-- 
Magnus Therning  OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4
email: mag...@therning.org   jabber: mag...@therning.org
twitter: magthe   http://therning.org/magnus

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-29 Thread Malcolm Wallace
I think you will find that the Original Poster did not ask about ArchHaskell, 
but rather about Haskell on the Arch platform.  He was completely unaware of 
ArchHaskell as a project.  This might be a source of some confusion, and help 
to explain divergent attitudes.

Regards,
Malcolm

On 29 Oct 2012, at 14:41, Magnus Therning wrote:

 Please stay on topic, this is *not* a discussion about Haskell
 Platform[1], it's a discussion on ArchHaskell[2].  Please read up on
 the mailing list archives first, and then, if you still feel there's a
 need to discuss HP in ArchHaskell (which isn't the same thing as Arch
 itself) then please start a new thread.
 
 /M
 
 [1]: http://www.haskell.org/platform/
 [2]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ArchHaskell
 
 On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 2:53 PM, Brandon Allbery allber...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 5:56 AM, Magnus Therning mag...@therning.org
 wrote:
 
 Now I'm going to run the risk of upsetting you quite a bit by being
 completely blunt.
 
 
 Indeed.
 
 
 You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your
 own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.  You do know *your*
 
 
 May I ask you a question, then?
 
 Does the Haskell Platform have any reason to exist?
 
 Supposedly, the Haskell community backs the Haskell Platform as the way that
 most users should be using the Platform.  Yet we have here a vendor platform
 which does not support it, and newcomers who notice this and question it are
 chastised for not thinking about the needs of other people.  This suggests
 that the Haskell Platform is unimportant and perhaps disruptive to some
 significant group of people... is this so?
 
 And then, looking at your own message, I must ask:  have you considered that
 the Platform is aimed at the great many people who do not have large amounts
 of expertise maintaining their own personal Haskell ecosystem.  Or are your
 needs so important that these people must in fact be told to deal?
 
 Or, to phrase in your own words:
 
 You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your
 own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.
 
 
 --
 brandon s allbery kf8nh   sine nomine associates
 allber...@gmail.com  ballb...@sinenomine.net
 unix/linux, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure  http://sinenomine.net
 
 
 
 
 -- 
 Magnus Therning  OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4
 email: mag...@therning.org   jabber: mag...@therning.org
 twitter: magthe   http://therning.org/magnus
 
 ___
 Haskell-Cafe mailing list
 Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-29 Thread timothyhobbs
To be clear, the project ArchHaskell has little or no relation to my 
original post.  If I understand correctly, ArchHaskell is a set of Arch uses
who attempted to repackage the packages in hackage in the AUR.  This 
addresses issues of package management that are unrelated to my complaint.  
My complaint is that Arch currently does not support having two versions of 
GHC installed and GHC does not support backwards compatibility.  The current
method of always updating GHC to the latest version, discarding the old 
version is useful to the most hard core bleeding edge types. An alternative 
model for those of us that need a consistently usable system is not well 
supported.  Currently updating ghc the normal way always breaks your build
system.  Arch has addressed this issue with a number of other packages.  
Perhaps the best comparison would be ghchttps://www.archlinux.org/packages/
extra/x86_64/ghc/ verse linuxhttps://www.archlinux.org/packages/core/i686/
linux/.  With linux, we have a linux package and a linux-ltshttps://
www.archlinux.org/packages/core/x86_64/linux-lts/ package.  These are the 
same, but linux-lts gets updated slightly less often and with less 
expedition.  This problem has been had in Arch, it's been solved, and we 
should take the example of these other cases I have provided and make two 
ghc packages, so that there is a standard supported sane way to use ghc on 
arch linux.  This isn't a problem that affects me personally these days. As 
an advanced user I don't really have any trouble working around the issue.  
But I'd like Arch to be inviting to newbies and to have what most of us more
experienced users implement manually by default.

Timothy


-- Původní zpráva --
Od: Malcolm Wallace malcolm.wall...@me.com
Datum: 29. 10. 2012
Předmět: Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch
I think you will find that the Original Poster did not ask about 
ArchHaskell, but rather about Haskell on the Arch platform. He was 
completely unaware of ArchHaskell as a project. This might be a source of 
some confusion, and help to explain divergent attitudes.

Regards,
Malcolm

On 29 Oct 2012, at 14:41, Magnus Therning wrote:

 Please stay on topic, this is *not* a discussion about Haskell
 Platform[1], it's a discussion on ArchHaskell[2]. Please read up on
 the mailing list archives first, and then, if you still feel there's a
 need to discuss HP in ArchHaskell (which isn't the same thing as Arch
 itself) then please start a new thread.
 
 /M
 
 [1]: http://www.haskell.org/platform/(http://www.haskell.org/platform/)
 [2]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ArchHaskell
(https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ArchHaskell)
 
 On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 2:53 PM, Brandon Allbery allber...@gmail.com 
wrote:
 On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 5:56 AM, Magnus Therning mag...@therning.org
 wrote:
 
 Now I'm going to run the risk of upsetting you quite a bit by being
 completely blunt.
 
 
 Indeed.
 
 
 You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your
 own situation, but fail to see the larger picture. You do know *your*
 
 
 May I ask you a question, then?
 
 Does the Haskell Platform have any reason to exist?
 
 Supposedly, the Haskell community backs the Haskell Platform as the way 
that
 most users should be using the Platform. Yet we have here a vendor 
platform
 which does not support it, and newcomers who notice this and question it 
are
 chastised for not thinking about the needs of other people. This suggests
 that the Haskell Platform is unimportant and perhaps disruptive to some
 significant group of people... is this so?
 
 And then, looking at your own message, I must ask: have you considered 
that
 the Platform is aimed at the great many people who do not have large 
amounts
 of expertise maintaining their own personal Haskell ecosystem. Or are 
your
 needs so important that these people must in fact be told to deal?
 
 Or, to phrase in your own words:
 
 You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your
 own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.
 
 
 --
 brandon s allbery kf8nh sine nomine associates
 allber...@gmail.com ballb...@sinenomine.net
 unix/linux, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure http://sinenomine.net
(http://sinenomine.net)
 
 
 
 
 -- 
 Magnus Therning OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4
 email: mag...@therning.org jabber: mag...@therning.org
 twitter: magthe http://therning.org/magnus(http://therning.org/magnus)
 
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-29 Thread Peter Simons
Hi Timothy,

the Haskell community is not the right audience to be addressing these
complaints to. Instead, you should be talking to the ArchLinux developers,
who are responsible for packaging Haskell-related software in the [core]
and [extra] repositories. I am no expert in these matters, but my guess is
that the mailing list

  https://mailman.archlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/arch-dev-public

is more appropriate than haskell-cafe for this thread.

Take care,
Peter


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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-29 Thread Vagif Verdi
I fail to see how a fringe bleeding edge linux distro undermines a haskell 
platform.

Arch is bleeding edge. Haskell Platform is not. It is logical for a 
bleeding edge distro to include latest packages.

If you want a good support, use distros that provide such support and 
stability. Last i checked Ubuntu ships haskell platform and not the latest 
ghc.

Having said that, Arch DOES provide easy solution to this problem. Just put 
IgnorePkg in your pacman.conf.

You are complaining on the wrong forum, to the wrong people about the 
behavior natural for a bleeding edge distro.

On Monday, October 29, 2012 6:54:59 AM UTC-7, Brandon Allbery wrote:

 On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 5:56 AM, Magnus Therning 
 mag...@therning.orgjavascript:
  wrote:

 Now I'm going to run the risk of upsetting you quite a bit by being
 completely blunt.


 Indeed.
  

 You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your
 own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.  You do know *your*


 May I ask you a question, then?

 Does the Haskell Platform have any reason to exist?

 Supposedly, the Haskell community backs the Haskell Platform as the way 
 that most users should be using the Platform.  Yet we have here a vendor 
 platform which does not support it, and newcomers who notice this and 
 question it are chastised for not thinking about the needs of other people. 
  This suggests that the Haskell Platform is unimportant and perhaps 
 disruptive to some significant group of people... is this so?

 And then, looking at your own message, I must ask:  have you considered 
 that the Platform is aimed at the great many people who do not have large 
 amounts of expertise maintaining their own personal Haskell ecosystem.  Or 
 are your needs so important that these people must in fact be told to deal?

 Or, to phrase in your own words:

 You come across in your mail like someone who has thought through your
 own situation, but fail to see the larger picture.


 -- 
 brandon s allbery kf8nh   sine nomine 
 associates
 allb...@gmail.com javascript:  
 ball...@sinenomine.net javascript:
 unix/linux, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure  
 http://sinenomine.net

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-29 Thread Fabio Riga
2012/10/29  timothyho...@seznam.cz:
 To be clear, the project ArchHaskell has little or no relation to my
 original post.  If I understand correctly, ArchHaskell is a set of Arch uses
 who attempted to repackage the packages in hackage in the AUR.
Not exactly. ArchHaskell try to keep an ArchLinux repository of
Haskell package without the dependency mess that pop out from using
cabal install.

 addresses issues of package management that are unrelated to my complaint.
 My complaint is that Arch currently does not support having two versions of
 GHC installed and GHC does not support backwards compatibility.  The current
 method of always updating GHC to the latest version, discarding the old
 version is useful to the most hard core bleeding edge types.  An alternative
 model for those of us that need a consistently usable system is not well
 supported.  Currently updating ghc the normal way always breaks your build
 system.  Arch has addressed this issue with a number of other packages.
 Perhaps the best comparison would be
 ghchttps://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/ghc/ verse
 linuxhttps://www.archlinux.org/packages/core/i686/linux/.  With linux, we
 have a linux package and a
 linux-ltshttps://www.archlinux.org/packages/core/x86_64/linux-lts/
 package.  These are the same, but linux-lts gets updated slightly less often
 and with less expedition.  This problem has been had in Arch, it's been
 solved, and we should take the example of these other cases I have provided
 and make two ghc packages, so that there is a standard supported sane way to
 use ghc on arch linux.  This isn't a problem that affects me personally
 these days. As an advanced user I don't really have any trouble working
 around the issue.  But I'd like Arch to be inviting to newbies and to have
 what most of us more experienced users implement manually by default.

I think ArchLinux is about bleeding edge types. It is normal for Arch
to have the latest stable version available in repository. And ghc is
not the kernel. For example Arch has ruby-1.9, while many other
distros still use 1.8. But if you do need ghc-7.4 and you don't want
to deal with upgrades of every Haskell library you use, you can always
install haskell-platform and use cabal for the needed libraries. But
when you'll want to update to the next haskell-platform version (or
whatever you define as stable), you'll have to remove and reinstall
everything. Having Arch packages makes this process smoother.

Fabio

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[Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-28 Thread timothyhobbs
Hello,
Who is in charge of the ghc and haskell packages on Arch linux?  The current
system isn't working.

Arch linux tends to update packages very quickly.

For ghc, always having the latest ghc isn't a good thing.  At least if you 
actually want to get some work done.  A majority of the time the latest GHC 
is unusable. This is because the packages in hackage simply don't keep up.  
With the current ghc version(7.6.1) even some basic packages in hackage are 
not upgraded yet.  

Right now, a large number of other haskell related packages are in the arch 
repos. Other than gtk2hs, I think these packages are pointless duplications.
  In the other cases, it has been my experience that it is simpler to 
maintain these packages through cabal rather than through pacman.  Support 
for these packages in Arch should probably be dropped.

If you want to get work done in Arch with haskell, you should only install 
ghc and cabal-install(right now, you'll have to search the Internet for the 
old binaries, because the arch repos usually don't keep the old versions 
around).  Then you should add these packages to IgnorePkg = in pacman.conf
  this way things won't break every couple of months.  You can then choose 
to upgrade when you wish.

I hope that someone who is involved with the haskell Arch stuff reads this. 
 The current model needs to be rethought.  Linux should be sane by default, 
but I've lost many many hours learning that arch's relationship with haskell
is not so :(  Probably the best solution would be to make Arch automatically
keep two versions of ghc around at any given time.

Thank you for your time,
Timothy Hobbs
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-28 Thread Clark Gaebel
Personally, I like the latest version of GHC being in the repository, as
that's the version I normally use.

What packages aren't working for you on 7.6? I find that they get updated
pretty quickly, and if you run into any that aren't, feel free to send the
authors a pull request. Almost everything is on github.

- Clark

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 4:49 PM, timothyho...@seznam.cz wrote:

 Hello,
 Who is in charge of the ghc and haskell packages on Arch linux?  The
 current system isn't working.

 Arch linux tends to update packages very quickly.

 For ghc, always having the latest ghc isn't a good thing.  At least if you
 actually want to get some work done.  A majority of the time the latest GHC
 is unusable. This is because the packages in hackage simply don't keep up.
 With the current ghc version(7.6.1) even some basic packages in hackage are
 not upgraded yet.

 Right now, a large number of other haskell related packages are in the
 arch repos. Other than gtk2hs, I think these packages are pointless
 duplications.  In the other cases, it has been my experience that it is
 simpler to maintain these packages through cabal rather than through
 pacman.  Support for these packages in Arch should probably be dropped.

 If you want to get work done in Arch with haskell, you should only install
 ghc and cabal-install(right now, you'll have to search the Internet for the
 old binaries, because the arch repos usually don't keep the old versions
 around).  Then you should add these packages to IgnorePkg = in
 pacman.conf  this way things won't break every couple of months.  You can
 then choose to upgrade when you wish.

 I hope that someone who is involved with the haskell Arch stuff reads
 this.  The current model needs to be rethought.  Linux should be sane by
 default, but I've lost many many hours learning that arch's relationship
 with haskell is not so :(  Probably the best solution would be to make Arch
 automatically keep two versions of ghc around at any given time.

 Thank you for your time,
 Timothy Hobbs

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-28 Thread Rickey Visinski
Fyi, the is a specific arch-haskell mailing list which will probably get
you a better answer to your question.  I cc'd them for you.

~Rickey

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 5:24 PM, Clark Gaebel cgae...@uwaterloo.ca wrote:

 Personally, I like the latest version of GHC being in the repository, as
 that's the version I normally use.

 What packages aren't working for you on 7.6? I find that they get updated
 pretty quickly, and if you run into any that aren't, feel free to send the
 authors a pull request. Almost everything is on github.

 - Clark

 On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 4:49 PM, timothyho...@seznam.cz wrote:

 Hello,
 Who is in charge of the ghc and haskell packages on Arch linux?  The
 current system isn't working.

 Arch linux tends to update packages very quickly.

 For ghc, always having the latest ghc isn't a good thing.  At least if
 you actually want to get some work done.  A majority of the time the latest
 GHC is unusable. This is because the packages in hackage simply don't keep
 up.  With the current ghc version(7.6.1) even some basic packages in
 hackage are not upgraded yet.

 Right now, a large number of other haskell related packages are in the
 arch repos. Other than gtk2hs, I think these packages are pointless
 duplications.  In the other cases, it has been my experience that it is
 simpler to maintain these packages through cabal rather than through
 pacman.  Support for these packages in Arch should probably be dropped.

 If you want to get work done in Arch with haskell, you should only
 install ghc and cabal-install(right now, you'll have to search the Internet
 for the old binaries, because the arch repos usually don't keep the old
 versions around).  Then you should add these packages to IgnorePkg = in
 pacman.conf  this way things won't break every couple of months.  You can
 then choose to upgrade when you wish.

 I hope that someone who is involved with the haskell Arch stuff reads
 this.  The current model needs to be rethought.  Linux should be sane by
 default, but I've lost many many hours learning that arch's relationship
 with haskell is not so :(  Probably the best solution would be to make Arch
 automatically keep two versions of ghc around at any given time.

 Thank you for your time,
 Timothy Hobbs

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-28 Thread timothyhobbs
I didn't wish to suggest that the latest version shouldn't be available.  If
you read my entire message, the suggestion I made, is that arch should 
install the latest with the next to latest in parallel and do so by default 
rather than as some weird and hacky work-around.




Sending pull requests is great.  But one shouldn't have to put their system 
back together after an upgrade.  You ask me what package has broken, but 
that's not important.  A package always breaks.  Right now, the situation, 
is that a haskell user on a completely standard setup, will type pacman -Syu
and end up with a non functioning build toolchain.  You can of course work 
to fix this toolchain, and send pull requests. But say it takes a week to 
update all the packages you use.  That's a week of delay to a project.  
Furthermore, it is not very efficient for me to go and upgrade other people'
s packages.  Often times on this list there have been discussions regarding 
the upper bounds on cabal packages.  Some people believe that the upper 
bounds should be removed entirely, while others believe that they should be 
an educated guess made by the developer.  Tweaking upper bounds when I'm not
the developer then makes my guessing all the less educated.  Me tweaking 
packages which I do not know and sending pull requests is not only going to 
cost me more time than it would cost the package author, it is likely to end
up with me making the wrong changes and lead to a reduction in the quality 
of the code.





  There seems to be a bit of a clash between ghc being a tool, and ghc being
a toy.  There need not be.  Your works-for-me is great but it is meaningless
to those of us who use ghc as a tool for larger projects.




Timothy



-- Původní zpráva --
Od: Clark Gaebel cgae...@uwaterloo.ca
Datum: 28. 10. 2012
Předmět: Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

Personally, I like the latest version of GHC being in the repository, as 
that's the version I normally use.



What packages aren't working for you on 7.6? I find that they get updated 
pretty quickly, and if you run into any that aren't, feel free to send the 
authors a pull request. Almost everything is on github.




    - Clark


On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 4:49 PM, timothyho...@seznam.cz
(mailto:timothyho...@seznam.cz) wrote:

Hello,
Who is in charge of the ghc and haskell packages on Arch linux?  The current
system isn't working.

Arch linux tends to update packages very quickly.

For ghc, always having the latest ghc isn't a good thing.  At least if you 
actually want to get some work done.  A majority of the time the latest GHC 
is unusable. This is because the packages in hackage simply don't keep up.  
With the current ghc version(7.6.1) even some basic packages in hackage are 
not upgraded yet.  

Right now, a large number of other haskell related packages are in the arch 
repos. Other than gtk2hs, I think these packages are pointless duplications.
  In the other cases, it has been my experience that it is simpler to 
maintain these packages through cabal rather than through pacman.  Support 
for these packages in Arch should probably be dropped.

If you want to get work done in Arch with haskell, you should only install 
ghc and cabal-install(right now, you'll have to search the Internet for the 
old binaries, because the arch repos usually don't keep the old versions 
around).  Then you should add these packages to IgnorePkg = in pacman.conf
  this way things won't break every couple of months.  You can then choose 
to upgrade when you wish.

I hope that someone who is involved with the haskell Arch stuff reads this. 
 The current model needs to be rethought.  Linux should be sane by default, 
but I've lost many many hours learning that arch's relationship with haskell
is not so :(  Probably the best solution would be to make Arch automatically
keep two versions of ghc around at any given time.

Thank you for your time,
Timothy Hobbs


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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-28 Thread Patrick Palka
On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 5:54 PM, timothyho...@seznam.cz wrote:

   There seems to be a bit of a clash between ghc being a tool, and ghc
 being a toy.  There need not be.  Your works-for-me is great but it is
 meaningless to those of us who use ghc as a tool for larger projects.

This is not specific to GHC. Arch Linux, being a bleeding-edge Linux
distribution, tends to prefer newer versions of software over more stable
versions of software. I doubt that facet of Arch Linux will ever change, so
perhaps you should reevaluate your choice of Linux distribution or avoid
pacman/package updates for software whose stability and predictability is
critical to you.
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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-28 Thread timothyhobbs
Actually Arch has been accommodating in other cases when there was a stable 
library and a new/developing.  It certainly keeps around two versions of 
python, autoconf, GTK, qt, gambas...  The solution I'm proposing would be a 
little different than those cases, but on the same principle.


Timothy
-- Původní zpráva --
Od: Patrick Palka patr...@parcs.ath.cx
Datum: 28. 10. 2012
Předmět: Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 5:54 PM, timothyho...@seznam.cz
(mailto:timothyho...@seznam.cz) wrote:

 

  There seems to be a bit of a clash between ghc being a tool, and ghc being
a toy.  There need not be.  Your works-for-me is great but it is meaningless
to those of us who use ghc as a tool for larger projects.


This is not specific to GHC. Arch Linux, being a bleeding-edge Linux 
distribution, tends to prefer newer versions of software over more stable 
versions of software. I doubt that facet of Arch Linux will ever change, so 
perhaps you should reevaluate your choice of Linux distribution or avoid 
pacman/package updates for software whose stability and predictability is 
critical to you.


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Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

2012-10-28 Thread Vagif Verdi
Arch does not keep 2 python packages. There are simply 2 pythons (different 
programs). And this is true not only for Arch but for practically any other 
distro.

Obvious solution for arch is IgnorePkg in the pacman.conf. That's what i 
did (until Yesod officially supports newest ghc).


On Sunday, October 28, 2012 3:24:16 PM UTC-7, timoth...@seznam.cz wrote:

 Actually Arch has been accommodating in other cases when there was a 
 stable library and a new/developing.  It certainly keeps around two 
 versions of python, autoconf, GTK, qt, gambas...  The solution I'm 
 proposing would be a little different than those cases, but on the same 
 principle.

 Timothy
 -- Původní zpráva --
 Od: Patrick Palka pat...@parcs.ath.cx javascript:
 Datum: 28. 10. 2012
 Předmět: Re: [Haskell-cafe] GHC maintenance on Arch

 On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 5:54 PM, timoth...@seznam.cz javascript:wrote:

   There seems to be a bit of a clash between ghc being a tool, and ghc 
 being a toy.  There need not be.  Your works-for-me is great but it is 
 meaningless to those of us who use ghc as a tool for larger projects.

 This is not specific to GHC. Arch Linux, being a bleeding-edge Linux 
 distribution, tends to prefer newer versions of software over more stable 
 versions of software. I doubt that facet of Arch Linux will ever change, so 
 perhaps you should reevaluate your choice of Linux distribution or avoid 
 pacman/package updates for software whose stability and predictability is 
 critical to you.
  
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