Proposal: rename the Haskell Platform Full

Adam Foltzer acfoltzer at gmail.com
Mon Aug 29 16:23:01 BST 2016


A common theme has emerged in recent threads about how the Haskell Platform
is presented on the Haskell.org downloads page. It tends to go something
like:

I tried using Haskell Platform a couple years ago, and it was terrible! I
> couldn't install the libraries I wanted to use. Why on earth does
> Haskell.org continue to recommend this?


For folks who are Fully Immersed in the goings-on of HP and its recent
evolution, this is frustrating because we know the criticism is out of
date. However, can we really fault people for being confused? To summarize:

   - What we now call "Haskell Platform Full" (HPF) used to just be called
   "Haskell Platform" (HP)
   - HPF/legacy HP include packages beyond the GHC-bundled packages, which
   introduces potentially problematic constraints when solving for new
   libraries
   - "Haskell Platform Minimal" (HPM) includes the same executables as HPF,
   but in terms of goals is more like an evolution of the now-defunct minimal
   installers
   - People burned by solver errors with legacy HP see the words "Haskell
   Platform" and assume HPM is going to give them the same problems

Let's bikeshed up a different name for HPM, so that the bad experiences
people once had with legacy HP will stop hampering adoption of a product
that is not at all subject to those same issues.
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