Hoogle package search

Recently on the Haskell mailing list there has been some discussions of which packages Hoogle searches by default. One person remarked that it was unfortunate that the network package isn't searched by default. There are lots of packages on Hackage, and Hoogle needs to decide how to cope with so much choice. There are a number of questions that I need to answer in Hoogle:

1. What packages should Hoogle search by default? All of hackage? The base libraries? Only the packages a user has installed? Only packages that make it in to the Haskell Platform?


2. What groups of packages should Hoogle have available? Each package individually? All packages which compile on Windows? All packages by a certain author? All packages whose minor version number is even?


3. What UI should Hoogle show? Should there be checkboxes for each os's package? Should their be a checkbox for each compiler/version? Should their be no UI but some documentation?

And these questions present a number of trade offs:

• The packages have to be divided under sensible and clear lines - I don't want to (and shouldn't) arbitrate divisions like "good" or "popular".


• The more packages you search, the less relevant the results will be.


• The fewer packages you search, the more chance that you miss something.


• The more UI that is added the more confusing things get.


• My development time for Hoogle derives Bounded, Finite and increasingly also derives Small.

Thoughts and suggestions are very welcome. I've set up a wiki page to track peoples thoughts, please make your view and arguments known: http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Hoogle/Packages.

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