3 ms·

Too many Haskell libraries. What are we going to do about it?

38 points by dons 16y ago

tumult 16y ago
I'd really like to see a more powerful web interface to Hackage. For example, if I'm looking to pick out a library to use for something, I'd like to be able to filter the listings down to just the ones that build on GHC 6.12. Or the ones that have received an update within the last year. Or, for example, filter out packages with explicit parsec-2 dependencies, since I use 3 now. Maybe there could be some kind of 'gold star' that would show up next to the package name in the listing if your package meets a certain number of requirements. Builds on most recent stable release of GHC, no outdated dependencies, no dead link to homepage, has a maintainer. Maybe not those exact requirements, but I think encouraging the community to meet a high bar of compatibility and portability is healthy. Is there a rule against scraping Hackage? I am liking this idea.
- dons 16y ago
  You can scrape Hackage. The most efficient way is "cabal list" and its friends (access the Cabal database directly). I do that for the Arch Linux package status page: http://www.galois.com/~dons/arch-haskell-status.html http://www.galois.com/~dons/arch-haskell-status.html Using http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/archlinux/0.3/doc/html/Distribution-ArchLinux-Report.html#v%3AloadPackageIndex http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/archlinux/0.3/do...
  - tumult 16y ago
    Excellent, thanks
stonemetal 16y ago
The thing about just pulling the number of packages on Hackage is a large number of them are actually applications. I am lazy so the first section that proves my point is AI 9 entries. 3 libraries, 3 programs, 3 that list themselves as both program and lib. Other sections are similarly app full. Depending on how well separated the app and lib are in the app+lib category you could be looking at more than half of that package count being applications not libs.
- dons 16y ago
  Your point is well taken. Here's a quick script. Libs that also ship programs are counted twice, but we get: 2139 libraries 455 programs So, no, its more like 25% programs, 75% libs.
  - stonemetal 16y ago
    I still don't think we are in quite the situation you imagine. As a for instance check out distributed computing in hackage 18 entries, great right? Number of actual projects 4, 13 entries are for Happs. Opengl has a separate entry for its test cases. There is a large number of unimportant random junk packages in hackage. The main problem with hackage is that I need to figure out which of the 30 GTK packages I need before I can use GTK.

38 points by dons 16y ago

I'd really like to see a more powerful web interface to Hackage. For example, if I'm looking to pick out a library to use for something, I'd like to be able to filter the listings down to just the ones that build on GHC 6.12. Or the ones that have received an update within the last year. Or, for example, filter out packages with explicit parsec-2 dependencies, since I use 3 now. Maybe there could be some kind of 'gold star' that would show up next to the package name in the listing if your package meets a certain number of requirements. Builds on most recent stable release of GHC, no outdated dependencies, no dead link to homepage, has a maintainer. Maybe not those exact requirements, but I think encouraging the community to meet a high bar of compatibility and portability is healthy. Is there a rule against scraping Hackage? I am liking this idea.

dons 16y ago
You can scrape Hackage. The most efficient way is "cabal list" and its friends (access the Cabal database directly). I do that for the Arch Linux package status page: http://www.galois.com/~dons/arch-haskell-status.html http://www.galois.com/~dons/arch-haskell-status.html Using http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/archlinux/0.3/doc/html/Distribution-ArchLinux-Report.html#v%3AloadPackageIndex http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/archlinux/0.3/do...
- tumult 16y ago
  Excellent, thanks

stonemetal 16y ago

The thing about just pulling the number of packages on Hackage is a large number of them are actually applications. I am lazy so the first section that proves my point is AI 9 entries. 3 libraries, 3 programs, 3 that list themselves as both program and lib. Other sections are similarly app full. Depending on how well separated the app and lib are in the app+lib category you could be looking at more than half of that package count being applications not libs.

dons 16y ago
Your point is well taken. Here's a quick script. Libs that also ship programs are counted twice, but we get: 2139 libraries 455 programs So, no, its more like 25% programs, 75% libs.
- stonemetal 16y ago
  I still don't think we are in quite the situation you imagine. As a for instance check out distributed computing in hackage 18 entries, great right? Number of actual projects 4, 13 entries are for Happs. Opengl has a separate entry for its test cases. There is a large number of unimportant random junk packages in hackage. The main problem with hackage is that I need to figure out which of the 30 GTK packages I need before I can use GTK.