So for the change log to actually inform you of any changes, you had to know what was in it before? Either I'm confused, or that's not a very helpful changelog.
hmmm... python had taught me that "battery included" means that out of the package i find a web server, drivers for at least one database server, graphics libraries... a compiler and a lexer aren't what i call "batteries".
We have a roadmap to a truly comprehensive base set, based on peer review from nominated libraries on hackage (which hosts around 4000 libs now). Assuming eg snap or yesod servers are proposed, you might well see them in the next release.
For graphics, OpenGL is already standard, with a medium term plan to add Cairo/GTK.
Finally, all of hackage is a 'cabal install' away, reducing the need for a large core set.
Finally, all of hackage is a 'cabal install' away, reducing the need for a large core set.
This I think is the most important point. The value that the Haskell Platform has is that it includes the stuff that depends on system libraries (X11) and other packages that are more difficult than average to install. That means that once you get the Platform, everything else will probably be easy to install, and so there's no point in including it.
(This is especially true of things like web frameworks; what's popular today may not be in 5 years, and deprecation cycles are hard. Perl still includes CGI.pm, and people still use it because "it's core". Compatibility is nice, but encouraging obsolete programming techniques is not.)
But... Why would you want this? The platform already includes a very good package manager (cabal). What I'd rather like to see is even better dependency handling (currently, version numbers are too important for what they say) and conflict handling.
The latter is partly solved by cabal-dev, which installs packages that are dependencies of a development tree in a sandbox. The former problem could be solved using type-based dependencies [1].
>> hmmm... python had taught me that "battery included" means that out of the package i find a web server, drivers for at least one database server, graphics libraries... a compiler and a lexer aren't what i call "batteries".
The Haskell platform is pretty much the batteries what you want. It includes CGI for web, HTTP for making http requests, regexes, GLUT+OpenGL for Graphics, even a wrapper for Win32. And my favorite: the Parsec parser combinator library. What's missing from your list is the database library and a web server, if cgi doens't fit you. But they're just one "cabal install" away, and there's plenty more in there, like Web App frameworks, etc.
So if I've got older versions of haskell and cabal, what's the best way to update? (I installed using macports...) Because I've had a hell of a time keeping (or just getting) all the libraries in step, and I'm afraid if I install the new one, I'm going to have a lot of the older libraries just floating around, getting in the way of EVERYTHING.
