Jun 23, 2015
A few weeks ago, we announced the first public
beta of stack, a new build tool for Haskell. Since then we've
seen a huge amount of work on stack: code contributions, feature
requests, bug reports, and design discussions. In other words, the
response we've had from the community has been amazing. Thank you
for helping us push forward with improved Haskell tooling.
Today we're announcing a new milestone: we believe that stack is
now stable enough to be the standard build tool for most Haskell
development. We're taking the beta label off of stack, and
recommending people dive in. Please keep in mind that stack is still young
software, and there are likely corner cases that haven't been
worked out fully. However, the feedback we've received from other
users has indicated that stack is ready. The stack team itself
(both inside and outside of FP Complete) has been using stack for
months now as its primary tool. And at FP Complete, we've already
moved our biggest projects over to it.
Relevant links:
One question which I've personally held off on addressing until
now is a direct comparison between stack and other build tools,
cabal being the most obvious comparison. Expect a blog post on the
subject in the near future. For now, my recommendation is: try out
stack, and see if you like it.
Bringing Haskell to the masses
While stack started with the needs of existing Commercial
Haskell users, the goal we've always had in mind for it is a tool
that lowers the barrier to entry for non-Haskellers. As we've
discussed
before, FP Complete has done quite a bit of research on this
topic, and the data shows that build tool issues have been an
obstacle to adoption. We want stack to solve that, and we want your
help.
Firstly: keep doing what you've been doing! Using stack, testing
it, providing feedback, reporting bugs; all of these make stack
better for both our existing community and for newcomers. But the
next step is marketing Haskell outside of our community. All of us
Haskellers already know how wonderful a language Haskell is. Let's
send a clear message to the rest of the world that it's time they
try Haskell. stack's aim is to remove those initial barriers. But
now we need to tell people what Haskell has to offer.
If you're interested in getting involved in this kind of a push, please join and discuss on the Commercial Haskell mailing list. There's no preexisting formula for how this should be done. But the basic idea I have right now is:
Give users a clear message on how to get up and running with Haskell based on stack
Give a good example of a strength Haskell has
Make it easy for people to play around with the concept with some sample code
I'm sure others will have better ideas than I on how to
accomplish this. If you want to see Haskell take off as not only a
successful, powerful language (which it is now), but as a more
popular language too, come get involved!