[Agda] Dependencies for compiling agda, principal question

[Darin Morrison]

On 20 Apr 2010, at 14:38, Randy Pollack wrote:

> Darin Morrison writes:
>> 
>> Is there some reason you feel the current release version (2.2.6)
>> is not already accessible enough?
> 
> Yes.  The Ubuntu packages are built for 10.04-beta rather than 9.10
> (still the official release).  Same thing James and David are saying:
> to use Agda one has to screw around with beta software.

I have to disagree.

The source tarball of 2.2.6 and the hackage package (both of which are the recommended way of installing Agda AFAIK) should work perfectly fine with the current Haskell platform and do not require one to "screw around with beta software."

The Debian/Ubuntu packages may be a different story.  I don't know who maintains them (Iain?), but I believe they are not "officially" supported.  (I'm sure Ulf or Nils will correct me if I'm wrong.)

Haskell and related software are typically poorly supported on most *nix distributions and their package management systems, so it's not surprising that this may affect Agda as well.  In my experience, trying to install software that uses Haskell on such systems is more of a headache than it is worth and I recommend compiling from the source and installing locally instead (or using Hackage).

> Suggestion: make a Virtual Box exported image available for each
> release.

A good suggestion, but it would be quite a bit of extra work for the current developers to maintain I believe.  If someone wanted to contribute them to the project though I would imagine they'd be more than welcome.

Cheers,
Darin