A modest proposal (re the Platform)

[Páli Gábor János]

On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 7:05 PM, Sven Panne <svenpanne at gmail.com> wrote:
> The notion of "bug-free SW" is an illusion, no matter how long we wait.

I did not say that a bug-free software is expected, I know that there
is no perfect software, only better.  But starting to use the first,
previously not widely tested(?), release from a branch sounds a bit
risky to me.  I do not recall that HP ever experimented with pulling a
.1 release GHC into the set, probably for a reason.

> If there is a bug in the HP, so be it: Just release a 2014.2.0.1 version
> soon then.

Pushing out a new release has its own associated cost, at least for
packagers, I believe: if GHC has to be updated, all packages derived
from Haskell Cabal packages have to be potentially updated due to the
ABI hash changes.

> Although this is a totally subjective feeling (based on the very
> subjective impression on the installed user base), I think that a good
> out-of-the-box support for Macs is more important than FreeBSD.

Sure, I see.  I simply had the impression that the problems for Mac OS
X has been resolved and HP 2013.4.0.0 is ready to be published.
Obviously, I do not want you to be hindered due to FreeBSD's apparent
conservatism, if that is the way forward for Mac OS X, so be it!

> And what exactly does it mean that "we still use GCC 4.6" when Clang is
> the default on FreeBSD 10.0?

GCC can be always installed from the Ports Collection as a dependency,
even on systems later than 10.0 -- that is, the same C compiler can be
kept under the hood, independently of the base system settings.