
New haskell-lang.org - Rabble_Of_One
https://haskell-lang.org/announcements
======
cm3
FWIW, I've tried to use stack twice and came back to cabal-install. There's
also that I enable split-objects in ~/.cabal/config (not available in Stack)
and often use GHC on platforms where there's no Stack-provided GHC available.
That said, avoiding the compatibility problem of dependencies via curated
package sets (Stackage) is a nice idea. However, Duncan's nix-local-build work
makes the problems void from what I can tell, and Ed's Backpack work will
improve the situation even more. Though, curated sets are still a nice idea
regardless.

I'm not a Haskell greybeard, just a light user, but despite the improvements
via FPComplete's output, at least some of it feels NIH and unnecessarily
polarizes the community. For instance, reusing Shake in Cabal(-install) and
getting nix-local-build and Backpack production ready look like improvements
that will be beneficial for a longer time, rather than splitting the community
with a different build/package structure (stack).

I mean, dividing the already small Haskell community doesn't make sense to me.
If Gershom doesn't play fair with the management of www.haskell.org, this
should be raised officially and fixed, because haskell.org is not a one man
project and there's a team around it.

~~~
ezyang
Credit where credit is due: nix-local-build is mostly Duncan Coutts work (I
just wrote the announcement, and contributed some patches!)

~~~
massysett
Links to nix-local-build please? Is this the same as cabal new-build?

~~~
cm3
It's the same: [http://blog.ezyang.com/2016/05/announcing-cabal-new-build-
ni...](http://blog.ezyang.com/2016/05/announcing-cabal-new-build-nix-style-
local-builds/)

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Wow, this is awful. It seems like there are a lot of immature people on both
sides of this nonsense. If any of them are reading this: you're making your
ecosystem look bad. Settle your differences privately and present a unified
front.

~~~
tome
Could you explain more about what's awful and immature? Do you mean the linked
website, or the discussion here, or somewhere else?

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
The difference between haskell.org and haskell-lang.org, the new subreddit and
IRC channel, the cat fights between the designer and haskell.org, and so on.

~~~
Buttons840
The new subreddit is for discussing the new site, not for general Haskell
discussion. The top moderator of /r/haskell_lang confirms this:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell_lang/comments/4rv4uu/is_thi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell_lang/comments/4rv4uu/is_this_the_official_haskell_subreddit_or_is/d54cpja)

~~~
gmfawcett
It's a bit broader than discussing the site, if you accept what they have
announced. The subreddit (and twitter feed, etc.) will be "open to all to
discuss the contents of the website, and more broadly how to make Haskell as
welcoming a language, community, and ecosystem as can be managed." That second
part implies a wider mandate.

------
the_duke
Why on earth would they launch a new subreddit when there is
[https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/](https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/) with
20k+ subscribers?

~~~
Rabble_Of_One
Because /r/haskell has become a place of constant flamewars. We need a clean
break. A new subreddit provides a fresh start allowing to mold a new community
based on better principles. Everyone who wants to be part of the new community
is invited to join the new Haskell movement. Troublemaker will hopefully stay
behind

~~~
jerf
"Because /r/haskell has become a place of constant flamewars."

Are we talking about different /r/haskells here? I'm not seeing it.

"Disagreement" is not "a flamewar". Wouldn't even call it "constant
disagreement", either.

Do you have an example "flamewar" you can show us?

~~~
snaky
> "Disagreement" is not "a flamewar"

It's worse these days. "We need a safe zones!"

------
matt_wulfeck
I understand you desire a clean break, but personally I find it rather user-
hostile to fragment all of your resources so easily.

------
thu
I still don't understand why new subreddit or IRC channel are necessary. They
could be used strictly to talk about the new site, but it seems they will be
targeted to all things Haskell, exactly like the existing places.

Otherwise I'm all for some form of competition and moving things forwards, so
props for the initiative.

~~~
lallysingh
Seriously. And frankly, haskell-lang.org looks a lot like haskell.org

~~~
thu
This is the same design. And the person who donated it to haskell.org asked
them to stop using it[0]

[0] [https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-
community/2016-Ap...](https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-
community/2016-April/000100.html)

------
hguant
I guess I don't understand the need for a new IRC channel. #haskell is one of
the best out there, both as a resource and a community. Why split it up?

~~~
zxexz
I got the impression on #haskell-lang that the current occupants think the
channel is about the new website. But with a channel name like that it
definitely sounds like a channel devoted to Haskell discussion...and thus may
become one.

We already have #haskell, #haskell-overflow (sometimes even #haskell-overflow-
overflow :P) and #haskell-beginners. I don't think there's a need for further
IRC channels for language discussion. The current Haskell IRC community is
beautiful and the least toxic and splintered of any I've ever been to.

------
fumplethumb
Good to see that the Haskell community is looking for ways to be more
accessible to newcomers. I'm not very familiar with Haskell, but I have long
heard that the Haskell community wasn't interested in popularity. Has there
been a shift in their thinking?

~~~
MustardTiger
No. This is not the community's doing. It is FP Complete, a corporation
attempting to subvert the haskell community for their financial benefit. The
purpose of this site is to make newcomers think the FP complete tools are the
tools to use, rather than the official ones.

~~~
axman6
You do understand that comments like this are actually building their case for
problems in the community right? I've read several of your comments on this
page, and you're the only one making accusations without any evidence, and
turning this into a flame war. If you don't like stack, don't use it.

I'm not a big fan of this whole community splitting action, but to think that
it's been undertaken as a coup d'état to take control of the community by a
commercial entity is verging on tinfoil hat territory.

And you know what? Stack is a fantastic tool for newcomers, we use it
exclusively for our commercial Haskell projects and it's changed our
development practices for the better by a long way. Something that built today
I can be sure will build in a year without changes - cabal has never been able
to guarantee that. I'm really glad someone has put in the huge amount of
effort to make a better Haskell build tool, it's been far too long coming.

~~~
MustardTiger
No, this whole "any negative response to our hostile actions justifies our
hostile actions" nonsense doesn't fly. It is begging the question. And you are
spreading FUD again. Cabal absolutely is able to guarantee that, and always
has. All you do is exactly what stack is doing, pin yourself to a specific
version of your dependencies.

~~~
axman6
I'm not going to argue with you, I don't think you're contributing anything to
the conversation, and your tone definitely isn't, that's all

------
setra
Quote: Why a new site?

Since it is a common question in such statements, let us ask it directly here:
why create a new website instead of working to incrementally update
haskell.org? In the opinion of the team behind haskell-lang.org, the tooling
story and general ecosystem infrastructure for the Haskell community has
accumulated enough baggage that a clean break is the best use of everybody's
time. We intend to streamline the on-boarding process for new developers, move
away from infrastructure that is showing its age, and embrace newer approaches
to facilitate open collaboration. Similar decisions have already been made in
creating the Stack build tool and Stackage.

~~~
lallysingh
On-board them to Haskell or FP Complete?

~~~
MustardTiger
Exactly. At this point I really wish the FP complete people would just fork
GHC and get it over with. They've been such a huge problem in the haskell
community, just divide it up already.

~~~
tinco
A huge problem? Could you give an example of the sort of problem they are
causing?

Maybe I am out of the loop but from my perspective as a hobby coder FP
complete (particularly snoyberg) has done nothing but put out extremely useful
code. Most notable of which stack which is (going to be) the defacto standard
for deploying Haskell applications.

~~~
lallysingh
Stack is exactly that, and it's controlled by a private entity whose business
model works better the more dependence their users have on their tools.

FP complete isn't misbehaving, but they're putting themselves in a position to
do a lot of damage if they did.

~~~
codygman
> Stack is exactly that, and it's controlled by a private entity

It's open source and the bug reports and feature requests merged in seem to
indicate the aims have been making building Haskell projects easier.

I don't see indications of vetos in favor of FP complete that hurt the Haskell
community.

~~~
lallysingh
Stack isn't just a tool, it's also infrastructure to support that tool.

I use it constantly, and like it, but let's not pretend there isn't a shift in
power and influence as a result.

------
ezyang
Well, at least one motivation for launching a new site is so that
[https://haskell-lang.org/get-started](https://haskell-lang.org/get-started)
is a much more streamlined way to onboard users than the existing
[https://www.haskell.org/downloads](https://www.haskell.org/downloads)
Unfortunately, the presentation of how to start new users is somewhat
political because there is disagreement if new users should just get stated on
Stack, or see all of the options.

~~~
jerf
A new website I understand. If one wants a radically different model of
community participation than what the standard haskell site presents, by far
the best and easiest thing for everybody is to just do it, and see what
happens. The original can conservatively hang around, the new one can be
trialed, if the new one is successful perhaps the original adapts or is even
replaced. (IIRC, the maintainers of haskell.org have stated they don't have a
lot of time to advance the backend and make significant changes.) That all
makes sense to me.

It's the rest of the fragmentation that doesn't.

~~~
jerf
Reply because I can't edit now: It seems the new subreddit was set up for
discussing the new site only, so it's not a fragmentation:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell_lang/comments/4rv4uu/is_thi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell_lang/comments/4rv4uu/is_this_the_official_haskell_subreddit_or_is/d54cpja)

No one on /r/haskell seems to know who Rabble_of_One is who has been posting
here. I believe the assertions that none of the involved parties would
hesitate to speak out under their established names, because they have not
hesitated in the past to take strong positions.

------
ihuman
Why are there two Haskell websites (haskell-lang.org and haskell.org)?

~~~
massysett
You think that's confusing? The old home page led straight to a wiki, which is
still up:

[https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell](https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell)

~~~
ihuman
Which one is the official website and endorsed by the writers of the
language/compiler?

~~~
thu
I wouldn't say the "writers" are endorsing the old website, or not endorsing
the new one, but whois is pretty telling:

    
    
        $ whois haskell-lang.org | grep ' Name:'
        Domain Name: HASKELL-LANG.ORG
        Registrant Name: FP Complete Corporation
        Admin Name: FP Complete Corporation
        Tech Name: FP Complete Corporation
    
        $ whois haskell.org | grep ' Name:'
        Domain Name: HASKELL.ORG
        Registrant Name: YaleUniversityComputer Science Department Haskell Group
        Admin Name: Galois Hostmaster
        Tech Name: Galois Hostmaster

------
riscy
This seems like a community leadership coup to get people to use a different
package management system, Stack.

------
wyager
Why? How does this improve over the old one? I'm certainly not going to change
IRC channels or subreddits.

------
thu
The link to the CHG (which I confused with IHG) is using HTTPS but it seems
the redirect to GitHub works only in HTTP.

I'm not sure what stating CHG sponsors the new site means.

~~~
sclv
I have no idea either. The new site was never discussed once on the list (
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/commercialhaskell](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/commercialhaskell)
) nor does there seem to be anything in the CHG charter that would let it as a
group do anything at all, such as making a collective decision to sponsor a
site.

