
The Haskell Platform: a single, standard Haskell distribution for every system - jlhamilton
http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/
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gaius
No DB interface included, not even ODBC. Team Haskell doesn't seem to
understand (or care) what a barrier this is to mainstream adoption.

(Yes I know about HSQL but it's not exactly "batteries included" is it -
compare Haskell to Python in this case)

~~~
chancho
The single most important element of this package is the cabal-install tool.
"cabal install HDBC" or "cabal install hsql" etc. will download, compile and
install any library on hackage. Previously you had to 'bootstrap' cabal-
install yourself, which wasn't a big deal for experienced users but was an
annoyingly significant barrier for newcomers.

~~~
ionfish
While I agree unreservedly with this, it's probably worth pointing out for the
benefit of those who haven't gone through the process themselves that
bootstrapping cabal-install is a five-minute job (or less, depending on how
many dependencies you need to compile). The barrier is that one needs to look
up the instructions, and know that one should be looking looking something up,
rather than it being in any way difficult or complex.

<http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Cabal-Install>

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jamesbritt
This install 6.10.2, right?

I grabbed the generic source installer bundle.

When I run ./configure, it tells me

configure: error: The Haskell Platform version 2009.2.0 requires ghc-6.10.2

The requirement to have a working GHC in order to get a working GHC, while
interesting, seems a perplexing roadblock.

But extra puzzling is the requirement to have already the same version of GHC
that this is supposed to be installing.

What sense does this make?

I really like Haskell from what I've seen so far, but every time I try to
explore something that requires more than one or two packages it feels like a
test of cunning, will power, and patience to get all the right pieces and
version in place.

(BTW, I have GHC 6.11.20090501 installed via darcs source. Apparently this is
not enough:

./configure --enable-unsupported-ghc-version ... [much stuff] ...

checking for GL/glut.h... no configure: error: The GLUT C library is required

:(

I appreciate the effort and the ambition, but it's still too tricky.

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whacked_new
Clever, clever logo :)

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ggchappell
> The Haskell Platform is a blessed library and tool suite for Haskell, ....

Can someone explain what "blessed" means, in this context?

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sandGorgon
now... lisp.. if only

~~~
whacked_new
Off topic question:

Can somebody explain to me whether there is a semantic difference between
"..." and ".." above? I find this a baffling construction, moreso because both
happen within the span of two words, but at the same time it seems
unimaginable that it is an unintentional omission, because the cognitive load
of typing out "..." is a one-time retrieval + motor command and should be
automatized.

On the other hand, if the omission is a mistake then it means that it _isn't_
automatized and there should be a reason for that as well. It is also possible
that it is actually a formal punctuation mark in another language, which leads
to comparable and competing access times with "...", in which case I have no
knowledge.

If the ".." has indeed acquired actual, independent semantic significance it
must be recent and I cannot find it; what would it be?

~~~
marcusbooster
I read it as a trailing thought. Keyboards don't give us much expressiveness,
but we make do. :P

~~~
whacked_new
I see. Is this the commonly-accepted interpretation? What does the normal
ellipsis mean then? I use it as a trailing thought as well -- or, is it
trailing _speech_?

    
    
        spoken: now... [pause]
        spoken: lisp .. [thought...?]
        thought: if only
    
    ?

~~~
sandGorgon
wow. I never thought a comment of mine would be tokenized.

But, I guess your parsing was spot on

...

