| 26 Mar 2026 |
 alexfmpe | Usually haskell-updates is for LTS bump related shenanigans. If your error is present on master and can be fixed there, usually that's what you want | 17:27:14 |
| alexfmpe | Unless it causes mass rebuilds, then it goes on staging | 17:27:34 |
 aiya | i don't understand, i thought haskell-updates was for all Haskell package changes? | 17:28:00 |
| aiya | * i don't understand, i thought haskell-updates was for all Haskell package changes? or are you specifically talking about non-haskell packages | 17:28:09 |
 sterni (he/him) | it's a development branch for haskell related changes, but that doesn't mean that it needs to be used in every case | 22:37:26 |
| sterni (he/him) | we were stricter about this in the past, but due to workflow changes going via haskell-updates means changes don't see master for weeks | 22:38:17 |
| 27 Mar 2026 |
|  Mrjtjmn changed their display name from Mrjt. to Mrjtjmn. | 11:11:11 |
| aiya | okay it's actually a bit involved: | 18:08:12 |
| aiya | * okay it's actually a bit involved:
- C++ library and haskell package are both v1.4 on
master
- C++ library is v1.4 on
haskell-updates, haskell package is v1.5
so i think i'm going to update both in haskell-updates otherwise we get dependency hell (it may also be that the haskell package is not following PVP) | 18:09:53 |
| 28 Mar 2026 |
 woobilicious | anyone here know how to get pandoc haskell filters to work?
Could not find module ‘Text.Pandoc.JSON’. | 09:11:21 |
| woobilicious | is this just pandoc packagers forgetting to include pandoc with the interpreter? lol | 09:12:07 |
| woobilicious | oh it just uses the environments runhaskell | 09:17:24 |
 catsarecute | Hi! I'm a physics undergrad who uses NixOS and Haskell a lot, and I'm planning to apply for GSoC with the NixOS org this year.
I noticed that a number of Haskell packages in nixpkgs are currently marked broken or fail to build. I was thinking of working on systematically identifying and fixing these packages, and possibly building some tooling around detecting and categorizing the failures.
Does this sound like a useful GSoC project? Are there specific areas in the Haskell infrastructure of nixpkgs that would benefit from this kind of work?
| 15:40:41 |
| alexfmpe | I don't know whether it'd make for a GSOC project but I can give you some context | 15:58:28 |
| alexfmpe | https://github.com/cdepillabout/nix-haskell-updates-status/tree/79f26d542486bf7d8f1ea74c5aacc254aec4f005 | 15:58:40 |
| alexfmpe | I recently went through the first dozen or so of the 'top 50' broken packages there and most of them were just hopelessly bitrotten upstream | 15:59:26 |
| alexfmpe | So one problem would be identifying which packages are even worth spending time on | 16:00:19 |
| alexfmpe | I suspect a more useful thing would be trying to upstream some of our overrides to upstream packages that are still maintained enough to look at PRs | 16:01:58 |
| alexfmpe | As for tooling, there might be stuff worth doing, not sure.
I did https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/384591 a while back and it was nice bang for buck, I ought to wrap that up. The approach isn't particularly haskellPackages specific either | 16:04:51 |
| alexfmpe | I also have a little roadmap of things I want to change in cabal2nix but still haven't gone over them properly with the maintainer team to gauge fit/interest | 16:06:15 |
| alexfmpe | Also, are you talking about haskell or nix gsoc? I mean, if it's on the intersection of domains I guess this is the room to ask about context, but the orgs deciding on applications have different priorities so a project/proposal might be desirable for one and not for the another | 16:08:05 |
 chreekat | yeah, speaking as somebody who was a GSOC mentor for Haskell a couple years ago, I would actually reconsider skipping out this year depending on what developed here. :) Assuming it's not too late to get registered as a mentor for this year.. | 16:23:42 |
| chreekat | Is Jens Petersen here? Looks like it. A group of us had discussed distro-agnostic tooling at Zurihac last year, along with teo (they/he) and maralorn . Offhand the details are fuzzy. I recall: (1) nixpkgs, stackage, clc-stackage, and head.hackage all test a bunch of packages against chosen versions of ghc. (2) It would be good to somehow share tooling or reporting methods for these distributions?
I'll be honest, there's not enough in what I'm writing to really go anywhere, but maybe others can fill in more details if they remember them
| 16:26:43 |
| catsarecute | Ah that makes sense, thanks for the context.
I hadn’t considered that many of the broken packages might just be abandoned upstream. The idea of reducing the number of overrides by upstreaming fixes sounds really interesting though.
I was thinking along the lines of identifying overrides in nixpkgs that could be upstreamed and sending patches upstream or improving tooling around cabal2nix or the Haskell packaging workflow to reduce the need for overrides
I was considering nixos as the gsoc org
| 16:28:39 |
| catsarecute | Ah sorry, I meant as a student, not a mentor 😅
And thank you, I appreciate that. I think I’ll probably skip applying this year and spend some time first getting more familiar with the haskell side of nixpkgs and contributing a bit.
| 16:31:17 |
| chreekat | Sorry, I knew you meant doing this as a student -- I meant I would consider being the mentor. :D Anyway I encourage you to pursue whatever strikes your fancy | 16:32:08 |
| chreekat | I would caution that submitting PRs to a bunch of different projects, who may or may not care/be alive/have time/have any idea what GSOC is might not be considered a strong proposal. I also know from experience you'd just spend a lot of time waiting to hear from maintainers | 16:33:22 |
| chreekat | Useful, but thankless | 16:33:25 |
| catsarecute | Yeah that makes sense, I can see how that could end up being a lot of waiting around.
If you’d be interested in mentoring though, I’d really like to hear what kind of project you think would make sense here. I’m mostly drawn to the Haskell/Nix intersection so I’m happy to adjust the idea if there’s something in that area that would actually be more useful.
| 16:36:07 |
| chreekat | Right now I'm more familiar with the Stackage world. Do any of you Nixpkgs maintainers have any ideas worth considering? | 16:38:12 |
