Start coding section

[lsmor]

It closes #207

relates to #189 and #136

At the moment it favors instalation via GHCup, vscode as an editor and cabal as a building tool.I think these are sensible defaults. I have put the link at the top row just because I found it the easiest way to do it, but let me know where would be the best position.

[tomjaguarpaw]

Thanks for this! It will be a while before I get the chance to look at this, but I didn't want to leave this contribution without a response. Perhaps other committee members will get a chance to look before me.

[lsmor]

Thanks for the reply. I'll be out-of-internet this month, so I am not in rush for the review :)

[TikhonJelvis]

Thanks for the PR!

The content covered here partially overlaps with the downloads page, but that isn't necessarily a problem. Seems that having separate "getting started" and "downloads" pages could improve the overall design of the site by giving each page a clearer identity. "Getting Started" would be a "how-to"-style document for beginners while "Downloads" would be reference documentation for getting tools/GHC versions/etc.

I haven't thought this through in detail though; this is just a quick thought upon reviewing this PR.

[lsmor]

@TikhonJelvis Great to see this moving on! I see you've approved the changes but didn't merge yet. Do we need other mantainer's check? Do I need to change something?

Best,
Luis

[TikhonJelvis]

Yeah, we need at least one more committee member to look it over. I mentioned this PR on our internal Slack channel so hopefully it'll get some attention soon :)

No changes needed from you, at least based on my review!

[soupi]

Consider linking to the documentation page as well so that the user can pick a learning resource

[lsmor]

Consider linking to the documentation page as well so that the user can pick a learning resource

I have addressed the other changes but I don't know what you mean be this one.

[soupi]

@lsmor a beginner needs to do two things: 1. Set up a dev env, which this guide walks them through, 2. Pick up a learning resource, which this guide does not cover. I suggest linking to the documentation page at the end of the article so that the user can do (2).

[lsmor]

@soupi Added a new section pointing to documentation page. On another topic, now that stack has updated to v2.9.1 it is very likely that step 1 of this guide gets outdated (because ghcup will configure stack for you), should this be merge when ghcup updates, or should we warn about it now?

[soupi]

Looks good. The only reservation I have is that some of the guides linked there are a bit outdated and mention cabal sandboxes. I think we have more modern guides that could be used (1, 2) but that's not necessarily in the scope of this PR I think.

[hasufell]

@lsmor a beginner needs to do two things: 1. Set up a dev env, which this guide walks them through, 2. Pick up a learning resource, which this guide does not cover. I suggest linking to the documentation page at the end of the article so that the user can do (2).

The documentation page is a mess and will leave a beginner confused with too many options that are not structured.

[lsmor]

The documentation page is a mess and will leave a beginner confused with too many options that are not structured.

There seems to be contradictory opinions here. I agree with documentation page being a mess. The problem is that as far as I can tell there is no "official" learning resource, and most FOSS resources are outdated. Should the "start coding section" promote one?, Should just reference to documentation page? should include links to ecosystem's tools like hoogle, hackage, etc... but no book at all?

I think there should be a section including a how to start a new project including links to cabal and stack user guides, and probably some snippet. Also, there should be documentation about hackage, stackage and hoogle at least, since these are fairly standards within the community.

The problem with the above, is that there isn't a book to go to. Probably LYAH is the "default" but it is outdated afaik.

I propose:

• Add a start new project section as defined above
• Add a learn haskell section pointing to documentation (not the optimal solution, but the best if we want to avoid having two different pages with learning resources.)

Notice that start new project section would contain links to cabal, stack, hackage, etc... (which documentation page also contains) Since using the build tool, and package repositories is a must for newcommers, I don't think link duplication matters a lot here.

[hasufell]

Should the "start coding section" promote one?

IMO yes. GHCup homepage does exactly that.

[soupi]

The documentation page is a mess and will leave a beginner confused with too many options that are not structured.

I think fixing the problems caused by the documentation doesn't have to be part of the scope of this PR.

The documentation page already exists, if someone reaches the haskell.org website and to the getting started page they will reach the documentation page as well, with a link or without.
Any other improvement or recommendation of resources could be done in the documentation page instead and can take into account this discussion:

• Updating the Documentation page #189

That's my opinion at least.

[lsmor]

I think fixing the problems caused by the documentation doesn't have to be part of the scope of this PR.

I agree. It would be better if the documentation page gets a refresh and the start coding page just links to that. Of course thats a different PR and discussion.

[hasufell]

I think fixing the problems caused by the documentation doesn't have to be part of the scope of this PR.

My suggestion is to not link to the documentation page, unless it's fixed. This information will do newcomers no good.

[lsmor]

My suggestion is to not link to the documentation page, unless it's fixed. This information will do newcomers no good.

Up to you guys. It does not matter to me as long as the three steps to set up the dev-env are clear, and that's already there. I am happy to push another commit removing it or modifying it but I think we should move this forward in one direction.

[soupi]

I'm not in the comittee, so my opinion ultimately doesn't matter.

[lsmor]

I'm not in the comittee, so my opinion ultimately doesn't matter.

sad to hear that. So. who is responsable for this repo? Should I drop out the link to docs or not??

[hasufell]

I'm not in the comittee, so my opinion ultimately doesn't matter.

sad to hear that. So. who is responsable for this repo? Should I drop out the link to docs or not??

https://www.haskell.org/haskell-org-committee/

So far, @tomjaguarpaw is the most active.

[tomjaguarpaw]

So far, @tomjaguarpaw is the most active.

Fair warning though, I have a fairly large stack of things to do so I don't think I'll be able to get to this one quickly.

[lsmor]

I am closing this in favor of #214 which looks more promising.