Making Haskell more open

[Victor Blomqvist]

"Simon Peyton-Jones" <simonpj at microsoft.com> writes:

> The important thing is that these mechanisms should work without any
> central intervention.  These are just two suggestions.  Perhaps there
> are other such mechanisms that we could put in place.  Ideas?

One thing I have missed ever since I first visited haskell.org is a web
forum. I guess most of the people reading/posting on the mailinglists are
used to it and like it, but I prefer forums. Actually, I have never posted
here before, but I usually read the (for me) intresting parts from the
Haskell Archives. However, I have not read a forum-discussion yet, and
since noone has proposed it I felt that I should do a post about it.

/vb


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[Simon Marlow]

On 11 November 2005 12:57, Wolfgang Jeltsch wrote:

> Am Donnerstag, 10. November 2005 12:27 schrieb Simon Peyton-Jones:
>> [...]
>
>> - Work is afoot to move GHC's source-code repository to Darcs, to
>>   make it easier for people to contribute patches
>
> Is it planned to split the current big monolithic repository into
> multiple repositories in conjunction with doing the CVS-to-darcs
> transition?  I'd strongly recommend this.  What do others think?

We do plan to split the repository into several chunks, and over time
some of the libraries will migrate into their own repositories.  Here is
the current plan:

http://www.haskell.org//pipermail/cvs-ghc/2005-November/027174.html

>> [...]
>
>> * The GHC user manual [currently generated using DocBook]
>
> I think it should continue to be written in DocBook.  (It should
> switch to DocBook XML if it's still using SGML DocBook.)  XML
> documents are "type-safe" in contrast to LaTeX documents, for
> example.  XML is well supported.  DocBook stresses logical markup and
> allows very specific markup and therefore supports conversion into
> different formats (HTML, PDF, ...) very well.
> Again, what do others think?

We already use DocBook XML, and I'm relatively pleased with it, except
for the fact that it's far from easy to set up a working DocBook
toolchain on your system unless your OS of choice is up to date and has
a well-maintained set of DocBook packages.

Cheers,
        Simon
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[Duncan Coutts]

On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 15:49 +0100, Victor Blomqvist wrote:

> "Simon Peyton-Jones" <simonpj at microsoft.com> writes:
>
> > The important thing is that these mechanisms should work without any
> > central intervention.  These are just two suggestions.  Perhaps there
> > are other such mechanisms that we could put in place.  Ideas?
>
> One thing I have missed ever since I first visited haskell.org is a web
> forum. I guess most of the people reading/posting on the mailinglists are
> used to it and like it, but I prefer forums. Actually, I have never posted
> here before, but I usually read the (for me) intresting parts from the
> Haskell Archives. However, I have not read a forum-discussion yet, and
> since noone has proposed it I felt that I should do a post about it.

I would tend to disagree. I think the combination of the mailing lists,
a wiki and the IRC channel cover most of our communication needs.

I don't think that yet another variant would help us much. Web boards
tend to be harder to use than email since it requires a web browser.
Having too many differnt types of communication channel would reduce the
readership of any one of them.

Duncan

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[Tomasz Zielonka]

On Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 03:12:40PM +0000, Duncan Coutts wrote:
> I would tend to disagree. I think the combination of the mailing lists,
> a wiki and the IRC channel cover most of our communication needs.

Personally I prefer to use mailing lists, but they have one disadvantage
- if you don't set up filters to split incoming mail into multiple
folders, you can be flooded with messages.
 
> I don't think that yet another variant would help us much. Web boards
> tend to be harder to use than email since it requires a web browser.
> Having too many differnt types of communication channel would reduce the
> readership of any one of them.

How about a forum integrated with mailing lists?

Best regards
Tomasz
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[Bulat Ziganshin]

Hello Simon,

Friday, November 11, 2005, 5:51:55 PM, you wrote:

>>>      * The GHC user manual [currently generated using DocBook]
>>
>> I think it should continue to be written in DocBook.  (It should
>> switch to DocBook XML if it's still using SGML DocBook.)  XML
>> documents are "type-safe" in contrast to LaTeX documents, for
>> example.  XML is well supported.  DocBook stresses logical markup and
>> allows very specific markup and therefore supports conversion into
>> different formats (HTML, PDF, ...) very well.
>> Again, what do others think?

SM> We already use DocBook XML, and I'm relatively pleased with it, except
SM> for the fact that it's far from easy to set up a working DocBook
SM> toolchain on your system unless your OS of choice is up to date and has
SM> a well-maintained set of DocBook packages.

how it will be possible to contribute in ghc docs? for example, if i
wrote template haskell doc in MS Word, can i fo somethong to make it
ready to including in ghc docs?



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[Wolfgang Jeltsch]

Am Freitag, 11. November 2005 16:45 schrieb Tomasz Zielonka:
> On Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 03:12:40PM +0000, Duncan Coutts wrote:
> > I would tend to disagree. I think the combination of the mailing lists,
> > a wiki and the IRC channel cover most of our communication needs.
>
> Personally I prefer to use mailing lists, but they have one disadvantage
> - if you don't set up filters to split incoming mail into multiple
> folders, you can be flooded with messages.

IMO, the best solution are newsgroups.  What I dislike with web-based
communication (webmail, webforums) is that webbrowsing is not as flexible as
using a specialized software and that you are not free in choosing your
communication software apart from choosing a webbrowser – you have to live
with the webmail/webforum software installed on the server, independently of
whether you like it or not.

> > I don't think that yet another variant would help us much. Web boards
> > tend to be harder to use than email since it requires a web browser.
> > Having too many differnt types of communication channel would reduce the
> > readership of any one of them.
>
> How about a forum integrated with mailing lists?

Does such a thing already exist somewhere?

> Best regards
> Tomasz

Best wishes,
Wolfgang
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[Tomasz Zielonka]

On Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 04:52:30PM +0100, Wolfgang Jeltsch wrote:
> IMO, the best solution are newsgroups.  What I dislike with web-based
> communication (webmail, webforums) is that webbrowsing is not as flexible as
> using a specialized software and that you are not free in choosing your
> communication software apart from choosing a webbrowser ??? you have to live
> with the webmail/webforum software installed on the server, independently of
> whether you like it or not.

That's a good point... or points. I also like newsgroups, but I haven't
used them in a while, probably because most of discussions about haskell
take place on mailing lists.

Maybe it's time to register comp.lang.haskell?

Could someone tell me something about fa.haskell? Is it a mirror of
[hidden email]? Can it be used to post messages through NNTP?

> > How about a forum integrated with mailing lists?
>
> Does such a thing already exist somewhere?

Not that I know of.

How about an integrated newsgroup+mailinglist+forum. If we had a
two-way newsgroup+mailinglist integration, people could use it also
as a forum, for example through gmail.google.com. But I don't use
fora, so I probably talk nonsense.

Best regards
Tomasz
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[Simon Marlow]

On 11 November 2005 15:48, Bulat Ziganshin wrote:

> Friday, November 11, 2005, 5:51:55 PM, you wrote:
>
>>>>      * The GHC user manual [currently generated using DocBook]
>>>
>>> I think it should continue to be written in DocBook.  (It should
>>> switch to DocBook XML if it's still using SGML DocBook.)  XML
>>> documents are "type-safe" in contrast to LaTeX documents, for
>>> example.  XML is well supported.  DocBook stresses logical markup
>>> and allows very specific markup and therefore supports conversion
>>> into different formats (HTML, PDF, ...) very well.
>>> Again, what do others think?
>
>> We already use DocBook XML, and I'm relatively pleased with it,
>> except for the fact that it's far from easy to set up a working
>> DocBook toolchain on your system unless your OS of choice is up to
>> date and has a well-maintained set of DocBook packages.
>
> how it will be possible to contribute in ghc docs? for example, if i
> wrote template haskell doc in MS Word, can i fo somethong to make it
> ready to including in ghc docs?

You can either author in DocBook XML directly, or send us chunks of
plain text and we'll do the markup for you (obviously we prefer the
former, though).

Cheers,
        Simon
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[Shae Matijs Erisson]

Tomasz Zielonka <[hidden email]> writes:

> That's a good point... or points. I also like newsgroups, but I haven't
> used them in a while, probably because most of discussions about haskell
> take place on mailing lists.
>
> Maybe it's time to register comp.lang.haskell?
>
> Could someone tell me something about fa.haskell? Is it a mirror of
> [hidden email]? Can it be used to post messages through NNTP?

I use gmane.org for all my mailing lists.
I use gnus in emacs, and I have:
(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.gmane.org"))
Subscribe to newsgroups that match gmane.comp.lang.haskell.*, and you're done.

> How about an integrated newsgroup+mailinglist+forum. If we had a
> two-way newsgroup+mailinglist integration, people could use it also
> as a forum, for example through gmail.google.com. But I don't use
> fora, so I probably talk nonsense.

That would be gmane.org. It has a web interface[1] [2], nntp interface, and it
works with all mailing lists that subscribe to it. It's also free.

[1] http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/
[2] http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general
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Shae Matijs Erisson - http://www.ScannedInAvian.com/ - Sockmonster once said:
You could switch out the unicycles for badgers, and the game would be the same.

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[Wolfgang Jeltsch]

Am Freitag, 11. November 2005 17:00 schrieben Sie:
> [...]

> Maybe it's time to register comp.lang.haskell?

You could also setup your own newsserver news.haskell.org and create whatever
groups you like there.  This way you could create several Haskell groups,
corresponding to the mailing lists we have today.

The advantage of newsgroups over mailing lists is that newsgroups are designed
for discussions among several people and therefore newsgroup software
supports this kind of usage very well while mailing lists are actually a
hack.

> [...]

Best wishes,
Wolfgang
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[Gour-2]

Simon Marlow ([hidden email]) wrote:

> We already use DocBook XML, and I'm relatively pleased with it, except
> for the fact that it's far from easy to set up a working DocBook
> toolchain on your system unless your OS of choice is up to date and has
> a well-maintained set of DocBook packages.

I consider that the structure of the present ghc manual does not need
such a rich markup as DocBook which is, imho, not very user-friendly.

otoh, I'd prefer something simple (if you want to get contributions from
more users) like 'txt2tags'

(see e.g. http://txt2tags.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html)

which enables one to do lot with very simple markup.

There are many targets supported, light sys-reqs, cli & gui, and even
syntax highlighting for (g)vim, emacs, kate...

Sincerely,
Gour

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[Bulat Ziganshin]

Hello Simon,

Friday, November 11, 2005, 7:11:51 PM, you wrote:

>>>>>      * The GHC user manual [currently generated using DocBook]
>>
>> how it will be possible to contribute in ghc docs? for example, if i
>> wrote template haskell doc in MS Word, can i fo somethong to make it
>> ready to including in ghc docs?

SM> You can either author in DocBook XML directly, or send us chunks of
SM> plain text and we'll do the markup for you (obviously we prefer the
SM> former, though).

it is current state, yes? are you planning to add some lighter scheme
via wiki?


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[jrv]

I agree with Gour.  I found txt2tags as a result of a discussion on the
GTK2HS list.  It is simple to use, readable as is, or easily transformable
to a variety of targets.  Also, it is consistent with bird-track literate
Haskell, so I can run my .lhs documents through txt2tags and get html,
latex, pretty text, or a bunch of things I haven't tried yet including
*.doc (msword) (the latter via txt2tags for html, soffice to go from html
to *.doc).

John Velman


On Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 06:29:24PM +0100, Gour wrote:

> Simon Marlow ([hidden email]) wrote:
>
> > We already use DocBook XML, and I'm relatively pleased with it, except
> > for the fact that it's far from easy to set up a working DocBook
> > toolchain on your system unless your OS of choice is up to date and has
> > a well-maintained set of DocBook packages.
>
> I consider that the structure of the present ghc manual does not need
> such a rich markup as DocBook which is, imho, not very user-friendly.
>
> otoh, I'd prefer something simple (if you want to get contributions from
> more users) like 'txt2tags'
>
> (see e.g. http://txt2tags.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html)
>
> which enables one to do lot with very simple markup.
>
> There are many targets supported, light sys-reqs, cli & gui, and even
> syntax highlighting for (g)vim, emacs, kate...
>
> Sincerely,
> Gour
>
> --
> Registered Linux User | #278493
> GPG Public Key | 8C44EDCD
>  
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[Mark T.B. Carroll-2]

Tomasz Zielonka <[hidden email]> writes:
(snip)
> Maybe it's time to register comp.lang.haskell?
(snip)

At the least, I find it conspicuous by its absence, given how many other
languages I see in comp.lang.* that I think of as less important, and
how busy groups like comp.lang.lisp are. In lieu of comp.lang.haskell,
comp.lang.functional seems to get most of the Usenet Haskell discussion.
Frankly, I'd be happy to see comp.lang.haskell supersede these mailing
lists, but I use Gnus for both mail and news so it all looks pretty much
the same to me.

-- Mark

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[Gour-2]

Wolfgang Jeltsch ([hidden email]) wrote:

> The advantage of newsgroups over mailing lists is that newsgroups are designed
> for discussions among several people and therefore newsgroup software
> supports this kind of usage very well while mailing lists are actually
> a hack.

I do not follow newgroups, but can you please explain a bit what
features are in newsgroup software that support this kind of discussion,
which are missing in the mailing lists?

(Pls. do not see this as a provocation, I'm realy interested to hear.)

Sincerely,
Gour

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[Creighton Hogg]

On Fri, 11 Nov 2005, Gour wrote:

> Wolfgang Jeltsch ([hidden email]) wrote:
>
> > The advantage of newsgroups over mailing lists is that newsgroups are designed
> > for discussions among several people and therefore newsgroup software
> > supports this kind of usage very well while mailing lists are actually
> > a hack.
>
> I do not follow newgroups, but can you please explain a bit what
> features are in newsgroup software that support this kind of discussion,
> which are missing in the mailing lists?
>
> (Pls. do not see this as a provocation, I'm realy interested to hear.)

Well, you don't have to be registered to post on it, which
is actually rather nice.  Also, I think the archiving would
work better.  The current Haskell mailing list archives
don't seem to run very fast.  If it was a newsgroup, then
you could use google groups to browse through old messages.
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[Gour-2]

Creighton Hogg ([hidden email]) wrote:

> Well, you don't have to be registered to post on it, which
> is actually rather nice.  

Hmmm, iirc, gmane.org wanted me to authorize in order to be able to
post though I do not know what is the present policy.

       
> Also, I think the archiving would work better.  The current Haskell
> mailing list archives don't seem to run very fast.  If it was a
> newsgroup, then you could use google groups to browse through old
> messages.

I do not experience any delay with the http://www.mail-archive.com/
archive, although it is possible to put e.g. htdig search engine on
haskell.org (there are patches for integration with mailman and I put
them on few sites.)

Besides that, one can always use something like:

'gtk2hs site:www.haskell.org//pipermail/haskell/' as a search term in
Google to restrict hits to e.g. 'haskell' mailing list.

Sincerely,
Gour

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[Benedikt Schmidt]

Tomasz Zielonka <[hidden email]> writes:

> On Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 04:52:30PM +0100, Wolfgang Jeltsch wrote:
> > IMO, the best solution are newsgroups.  What I dislike with web-based
> > communication (webmail, webforums) is that webbrowsing is not as flexible as
> > using a specialized software and that you are not free in choosing your
> > communication software apart from choosing a webbrowser ??? you have to live
> > with the webmail/webforum software installed on the server, independently of
> > whether you like it or not.
>
> That's a good point... or points. I also like newsgroups, but I haven't
> used them in a while, probably because most of discussions about haskell
> take place on mailing lists.
>
> Maybe it's time to register comp.lang.haskell?
>
> Could someone tell me something about fa.haskell? Is it a mirror of
> [hidden email]? Can it be used to post messages through NNTP?

I don't know about fa.haskell, but i'm using Gmane
(a bidirectional mail-to-news gateway, see http://www.gmane.org/)
for most mailing lists and posting this message to
gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general.

> > > How about a forum integrated with mailing lists?
> >
> > Does such a thing already exist somewhere?
>
> Not that I know of.
>
> How about an integrated newsgroup+mailinglist+forum. If we had a
> two-way newsgroup+mailinglist integration, people could use it also
> as a forum, for example through gmail.google.com. But I don't use
> fora, so I probably talk nonsense.

You can read (and post to) the groups stored by Gmane using one of
the two web interfaces linked from
http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general
, but there is some functionality missing that you expect in a forum
like showing only unread messages.

Regards,
  Benedikt

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[Tomasz Zielonka]

On Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 05:00:52PM +0100, Tomasz Zielonka wrote:
> How about an integrated newsgroup+mailinglist+forum. If we had a
> two-way newsgroup+mailinglist integration, people could use it also
> as a forum, for example through gmail.google.com.

Of course I meant groups.google.com

Best regards
Tomasz
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[Mark T.B. Carroll-2]

Gour <[hidden email]> writes:

> Creighton Hogg ([hidden email]) wrote:
>
>> Well, you don't have to be registered to post on it, which
>> is actually rather nice.  
>
> Hmmm, iirc, gmane.org wanted me to authorize in order to be able to
> post though I do not know what is the present policy.

People's institution's news servers often don't. For instance, for each
of the three news servers I use at the moment, from a "local" machine I
won't be asked for authentication to read and post to comp.lang.lisp.

I also like not having to authorize in some additional manner for
administrative operations. I have many e-mail addresses and automatic
forwarding, so it's annoying to have to figure out which e-mail address
I actually subscribed to the list with and to forge mail from it or have
the system send me password reminders or whatever, so that I can change
my settings. With newsgroups, I choose the "administration" interface,
not the list maintainer.

Also, with a newsgroup, I can come to it as a new user and immediately
have many days' articles available to me in my local newsreading client.
With a mailing list, I have to use the archives to get some recent
history, or wait a few weeks to get a proper feel for group etiquette.

Still, I use Haskell despite mailing lists being a principal means of
discussion. (-:

FWIW, if this gets such that it ought to go to haskell-cafe, I'll be
glad to follow it there. I fear I'm veering too far from important
points of general interest.

-- Mark

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