Most popular libraries not in the HP

[Don Stewart]

According to the 2010 download stats, the most popular libs *not* in the
Haskell Platform, by category are :

Libs
    binary       (rank  5/2200)
    utf8-string  (rank  7/2200)
    ghc-paths    (rank 15/2200) -- needed by haddock!
    hslogger     (rank 16/2200  -- LPGL
    transformers (rank 18)      -- related to mtl
    uniplate     (rank 21)      -- conflict with syb?
    terminfo     (rank 25)
    haskeline    (rank 27)      -- used internally by ghci?
    json         (rank 28)
    xml          (rank 29)
    text         (rank 31)
    HaXml        (rank 33)      -- LGPL
    HDBC         (rank 42)      -- LGPL
    convertible  (rank 43)
    dlist        (rank 54)
    vector       (rank 55)
    pureMD5      (rank 70)
    cereal       (rank 82)

Apps:
    cpphs        (rank 26)
    hscolour     (rank 48)
    pandoc       (rank 51)      -- GPL

Things we might realistically propose to add for 2011.1

    New capabilities:
        * Binary parsing: binary + cereal ?
        * JSON parsing:   json
        * An xml lib:     xml -- prob. needs polish
        * Unicode:        text
        * Vectors:        vector
        * Hashing:        pureMD5

    With license changes to avoid static linking problems:

        * Databases:      HDBC
        * XML:            HaXml

Questions remain about what GUI lib to bring in, to augment the OpenGL
suite.

    * gtk2hs
    * wxHaskell

Both cabalized, but will hamper the ease of building from source (since
they bring in big C lib deps).

Personally, I'd like to see binary parsing, vectors and unicode text
done. Maybe JSON.

-- Don