On Mon, Jul 05 2021, John Kehayias wrote:

> Hello,
>
> There have been several recent bug reports and patches (list below)
> that could be addressed with some changes to haskell-build-system, the
> Hackage importer, and some package updates. Given the number of
> packages affected, it was discussed on #guix that it would be good to
> have a branch for these changes and to have Cuirass build the Haskell
> packages to look for breakage.
>
> How do we feel about this? I'm happy to help with some patches I've
> submitted and update some packages, though it would also be good to
> have someone experienced with Haskell packaging and/or Guix too. (I'm
> new to both, but I've had success with my patches at least, locally.)
>
> Here is a (partial) list of the most recent bugs and patches that
> would belong on this branch:
>
> - https://issues.guix.gnu.org/48944 (build failure for new package,
>   addressed by next patch)
>
> - https://issues.guix.gnu.org/49199 (patch to add package-db to
>   runhaskell to help with non-trivial configure stage; worked around in
>   existing packages with a TODO marked to make this change actually)
>
> - https://issues.guix.gnu.org/49418 (metadata revisions not imported,
>   so e.g. dependency requirements out of date)
>
> - https://issues.guix.gnu.org/49326 (bug with specifying ghc version
>   for building)
>
> - https://issues.guix.gnu.org/49320 (importer doesn't support some
>   stages)
>
> - https://issues.guix.gnu.org/48999 (local source for Haskell
>   packages)
>
> I'm not sure what we would want to include or not in such a branch,
> but I think it would make sense to put together the build-system and
> related changes at least. Some package updates (like a ghc version)
> would also affect a lot of packages, so might be good to do that
> together as well.

Thank you for bringing this up!  I posted a WIP patch for adding GHC
8.10 a while ago, but nobody showed any interest[1].

I don’t have any experience with updating the Haskell toolchain in Guix,
but I think it would be great to have a separate branch for updating the
haskell-build-system and Haskell packages.  :)

[1]: https://yhetil.org/guix-devel/87o8cgfbg1.fsf@yoctocell.xyz/