Re: Hello HOpenGL

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 5:02 AM, Balazs Komuves <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 1:32 PM, Jason Dagit <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> On May 19, 2011 5:02 AM, "Balazs Komuves" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > I see you plan a complete rewrite, and removing the deprecated
>> > functionality.
>> > In this case I suggest to make a new package instead of a new version of
>> > the old
>> > OpenGL package, since it will actually be a very different package,
>> > presumably
>> > with different APIs, etc (and I don't think Sven actually agreed to
>> > replace it, since
>> > we cannot seem to reach him).
>>
>> I have to keep my reply short because I'm traveling, but two comments.
>>
>> Sven is no longer the maintainer, so we don't have to think too hard about
>> what he would do. We can make all the necessary decisions ourselves.
>
> Well, they way this change happened is arguably not completely
> transparent...

I did my best to be transparent about it.  I made sure to email this
list, haskell-cafe, haskell, and the libraries list asking if anyone
had heard from Sven.  I waited about a month before taking action.  He
still hasn't reappeared.

I have no desire to take control by force but I do think Sven has
effectively stopped maintaining these libraries and I don't want to
see them disappear.  Do you have advice on what I should have done
differently?

The only actions I've taken at this point are:
  * Declaring myself maintainer
  * Putting the repos on github
  * Updating the Haskell wiki to point to github
  * Creating a haskell-opengl organization on github to organize the
development efforts

The Haskell-opengl org is here, if anyone on this list wants to join
please send me an email:
https://github.com/haskell-opengl

One of the things I have NOT done yet is to upload new versions of the
libraries to hackage.  I thought I would wait a bit longer than just a
month before doing that in case announcing a new maintainer prompted
Sven to reappear.  It would be good to upload some bug fixes soon-ish
though.

>
> Anyway, there are objective reasons to make a different package: Apart from
> those I mentioned
> in my last email, we actually have hands-on experience what happens when a
> big rewrite
> happens the way you suggest, namely the parsec package, which still causes
> serious pains
> years later. We have parsec v2.x, parsec v3.x, parsec1, parsec2 and parsec3
> on Hackage;
> that's five versions in four packages with different maintainers, all
> because of one wrong decision.
> And arguably parsec2 vs. parsec3 is a much smaller change than what you
> plan.
>
> Furthermore, let's suppose the completely realistic situation one would like
> to use both the
> old and the new versions of the OpenGL package. This is next-to-impossible
> when it is the
> same package (and painful in any case), since other libraries you want to
> use but depend
> on OpenGL have to be recompiled each time. I again have hands-on experience
> with this,
> as I maintain a private branch the (very) old (before OpenGLRaw) OpenGL
> binding since I use
> frame buffer objects and other functionality not in the official package.
> Arguably, this is an
> issue of Cabal, but I have no high hopes for Cabal to solve this in the near
> future, and anyway,
> we should make life more painful just because.

Maybe we can get your frame buffer objects in to the newer bindings?

Thanks,
Jason