+++ Don Stewart [Aug 03 09 22:53 ]: > alexander.dunlap: > > > o pandoc — markdown, reStructuredText, HTML, LaTeX, ConTeXt, > > > Docbook, OpenDocument, ODT, RTF, MediaWiki, groff > > > > No. Pandoc is too actively developed to go into the HP. It's also much > > more of an end-user application than a "standard library" - it's > > applications are not general enough to be included in the standard > > distribution. > > > > One comment on your thoughtful post. > > What role does having unique capabilities for the Haskell Platform play? > > Our base library is already notable for having OpenGL support out of the > box. Maybe markup/markdown formats (for example) would also help Haskell > stand out from the crowd. A similar case would be gtk2hs out of the box > (Python supplied Tcl guis). > > On the other hand, maybe the HP should be aiming to be comprehensive > enough to /support/ pandoc without additional dependencies.
I agree that pandoc shouldn't be in the HP. Also, although we ought to have a zip encoding package, I'm not sure it should be zip-archive (I'm the author). zip-archive is not complete; there are some kinds of zip files it can't parse. Quoting the documentation: "there is no support for encryption, zip files that span multiple disks, ZIP64, OS-specific file attributes, or compression methods other than Deflate." A better solution, perhaps, would be a binding to libzip. In this connection, I want to make a general point about the HP: In a way, it doesn't matter so much which additional pure Haskell libraries it includes, because once you have cabal install, you can get anything easily. For bindings to C libraries, it's another story. pcre-light is a good example. If I want to tell someone how to install pandoc with syntax highlighting, I can't just say, "Get the HP and then cabal install pandoc -fhighlighting". I have to say: "First, install the pcre library, if it's not already on your system..." -- and you lose a lot of users at this step. Havig high-quality, high-level bindings to standard libraries like pcre, libzip, etc., together with the C libraries themselves, in HP would be very useful. John _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe