Re: [Haskell-cafe] Poor first impression

[Joe Re]

On 4/27/07, Fernando Cassia [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

I admit in shame never having heard about Haskell before. I know about PHP,
Python, IBM' s REXX, TCL, TCL/TK, perl... but Haskell, never.

So, here's how I landed in Haskell-land: I was looking for a simple
ncurses-based text mode mp3 player with some sort of basic GUI and found
HMP3 written in, you guessed it, Haskell.

So I follow the directions and download the huge 30MB+
ghc-6.6.1-i386-unknown-linux.tar.bz2. Bunzip2 it. tar xvf
it. ./configure and make install. So far, so good.
and I get the following message, supposedly telling me that the haskell
compiler was installed OK...
===
 Installation of ghc-6.6.1 was successful.

 To use, add /usr/local/bin to your PATH.

 For documentation, see /usr/local/share/ghc-6.6.1/html/index.html
===
 (/usr/local/bin is already in my path)

 So I decide to call the ghc compiler with no arguments to see if it was
indeed installed, and I get this:

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ghc-6.6.1]# ghc
 /usr/local/lib/ghc-6.6.1/ghc-6.6.1: error while loading shared libraries:
libreadline.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
 #

 So, I conclude that Haskell is not ready for prime time, if it cannot
install itself correclty including shared libs in a standard Fedora Core 6
system.

 Goodbye Haskell, I just wanted to compile a MP3 player, and perhaps if the
compiler installed OK with no issues, I'd have taken a look at the language.
But as of right now, I don't have time to waste with broken compiler
installers.

 Byebye
 FC
___
Haskell-Cafe mailing list
Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org
http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe




This doesn't seem to be a Haskell problem, so much as a package
management system problem.  As nice as it would be to have code
compile without a hitch on every distro of *nix, many packages don't.
For the most part, people just (and rightly should) use the package
management provided by their distro, which should automagically take
care of dependencies and version mismatches for you.

I've yet to have so much as a fuss on any of the many debian and
gentoo systems I've installed ghc on through apt/portage, and while I
have a disliking for rpms, I'm sure Fedora's yum system must have ghc
in their repository now.

Perhaps you were installing by tarball because you thought Fedora
doesn't have a recent version of ghc in their repositories?

Minor side note: ghc is just one of many (albeit the dominant)
compiler for Haskell.  Surely you wouldn't discredit C++ as a language
just because your borland compiler broke? :-)

--
Joseph Re, [EMAIL PROTECTED] SigNet Chair
___
Haskell-Cafe mailing list
Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org
http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

Re: Re[2]: [Haskell-cafe] Channel9 Interview: Software Composability and theFu ture of Languages

[Joe Re]

[I apologize for odd quoting, but I dislike sending html emails]
I do like the idea of developing a table of contents first and backfilling
it, though.  I would amend the process, however, to avoid the WikiBloat that
seems to inevitably follow when documentation projects get too open.
Instead of Wikifying it, I'd suggest instead that a call for proposals be
put on the mailing list.  I'm working on a chapter dealing with database
programming.  I need to know how to do insert whatever in Haskell.  Could
anybody interested in helping please submit some commented, functioning code
for possible inclusion?  Then the submissions could be made by email (and
possibly even discussed on-list) and the editor/author of the book can take
an executive decision and choose one if there are competing camps.

Instead of having someone work in solitude with occasional mailings back and
forth on the list, I would rather have an open wiki for the collection of
ideas from everyone.  Then, if you really wanted, a single person can use
those to create an 'editor edition' page that is only editable by them.
Best of both worlds, or do you see it differently?

--
Joe Re
___
Haskell-Cafe mailing list
Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org
http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe