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Haskell Platform 2012.2.0.0 released - includes GHC 7.4.1

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21–30 of 36 posts

Re: Haskell Platform 2012.2.0.0 released - includes GHC 7.4.1

#22
post #7

Anyone using Haskell and why?

Parsec was Haskell's 'killer app' for me, but I tend to do most tasks in it now that involve some kind of data processing. Economical syntax, strong support for function composition, pattern matching, and type classes are the main draws for me. I have also learned to appreciate enforced purity and the abundance of operators, two of the biggest hurdles coming from stateful, imperative, mainstream languages. I prefer a development style in which small, single-purpose 'components' can be built up in the REPL and plugged together. Haskell is very well suited to this. Especially once I realized the GHC compiler was really telling me useful things and not just trying to piss me off. I have a love/hate relationship with lazy evaluation.

Re: Haskell Platform 2012.2.0.0 released - includes GHC 7.4.1

#23
post #7

Anyone using Haskell and why?

I'm obsessed with programming languages and code beauty. I enjoy the pseudo-mathematical confidence Haskell gives me. There are several languages on my list, but I'm more productive and currently more satisfied with the results with Haskell than any of the others. I recommend giving it a look if you want to see something different.

Re: Haskell Platform 2012.2.0.0 released - includes GHC 7.4.1

#24
post #7

Anyone using Haskell and why?

Parsec was Haskell's 'killer app' for me, but I tend to do most tasks in it now that involve some kind of data processing. Economical syntax, strong support for function composition, pattern matching, and type classes are the main draws for me. I have also learned to appreciate enforced purity and the abundance of operators, two of the biggest hurdles coming from stateful, imperative, mainstream languages. I prefer a…

Nine times out of ten, when I'm done using Parsec I find myself wishing I were using Happy and Alex instead. Parsec seems to be powerful and liberating to a lot of people but I guess I had lex and yacc drilled into me hard enough that I haven't managed to let go yet.

Re: Haskell Platform 2012.2.0.0 released - includes GHC 7.4.1

#26

What is the defacto IDE/editor for Haskell? I've messed around with Leksah, which looks like it's pretty nice, but I have absolutely no idea how it works.

There really isn't a de-facto IDE/editor. The Emacs support continues to improve; Vim support is quite strong. There's EclipseFP for Eclipse. I have used Leksah and like it, but usually use TextMate.

Re: Haskell Platform 2012.2.0.0 released - includes GHC 7.4.1

#27
For anyone using Debian or a derivative and who wants to build from source and/or install without using the package manager, here's one way using Debian update-alternatives tool:

https://github.com/byrongibson/scripts/tree/master/install/h...

TLDR: Install GHC (binary) to a custom location like /opt/haskell/ghc, then add it to the system with the Debian update-alternatives tool, repeat with Haskell Platform. Only difference is you build Platform from source. update-alternatives scripts included for both.

Re: Haskell Platform 2012.2.0.0 released - includes GHC 7.4.1

#28

What is the defacto IDE/editor for Haskell? I've messed around with Leksah, which looks like it's pretty nice, but I have absolutely no idea how it works.

I use Leksah for larger projects. I use just my favorite text editor (Sublime Text 2) and cabal/ghc/ghci in a shell window for smaller.

Re: Haskell Platform 2012.2.0.0 released - includes GHC 7.4.1

#29

Can anyone from this project or knowledgable about it comment on why Haskell Platform isn't available for Ubuntu 10.04 which is a LTS release?

Use this [1] to install and maintain various ghc/platform pairs on older versions of Ubuntu. It uses Debian's update-alternatives tool to install multiple versions side-by-side and manage which version is 'active'.

Also, you'll probably need to make sure you've got all the required libraries and their versions [2], 10.04 may need some of them upgraded, not sure.

If that doesn't work, if you have dependency issues and can't fix them, then I suggest installing Ubuntu Server 12.04 in a virtual machine and playing with Haskell there instead. Ubuntu Server is relatively small, a base install in a VM is only about 1.5GB.

1. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4062692

2. http://www.vex.net/~trebla/haskell/haskell-platform.xhtml

Re: Haskell Platform 2012.2.0.0 released - includes GHC 7.4.1

#30
post #10

The Haskell Platform landing page is consistently beautiful. One of the prettiest landing pages I've come across. It lends a great deal of credibility to a technology when the up-front page looks like it was taken care of diligently. Contrast that to a page with only some text, a tarball link, and a mailing list (no names given, surely the reader can think of an example). I applaud the Haskell community for taking ca…

Exactly. For how often the spj comment about "avoid success at all costs" is thrown about in the haskell community, it seems like they can't avoid success :)
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