Requesting feedback for vgs-bios

[dramforever]

Inspired by hie-bios, vgs-bios is a work-in-progress implementation of a similar functionality for vscode-ghc-simple (hence 'vgs'). See this pull request: #89.

If successful, this feature will solve many of the long standing issues regarding the extension being unable to handle multiple packages/components. See the corresponding project for a list.

If you are a user of vscode-ghc-simple, please consider testing it to see if they work for you, especially if you have multi-component/multi-package projects that did not work in the past. Any feedback is welcome; please post them to the [issues section]. This feature is experimental and work-in-progress, and I do not really know what is the best way to test this myself.

How do I get a version with vgs-bios

Update vscode-ghc-simple v0.2.0 was released with vgs-bios. By the time you read this, it should be on the marketplace.

How do I use vgs-bios

Using hie.yaml

Create a file called hie.yaml, and configure it based on hie-bios documentation.

Examples taken from hie-bios documentation, shortened for breivity:

cradle:
  cabal:
    - path: "./src"
      component: "lib:hie-bios"
    - path: "./exe"
      component: "exe:hie-bios"
    # More components

cradle:
  stack:
    - path: "./src"
      component: "hie-bios:lib"
    - path: "./exe"
      component: "hie-bios:exe:hie-bios"
    # More components

We currently support basic features of stack and cabal cradles. See below for details.

Using replCommand

If you were using the configuration ghcSimple.replCommand, it should still work. But it will not handle multi-component/multi-package correctly.

Implicit configuration

If you specify neither of the above, your project may work anyway, but multi-component and/or multi-package projects may have issues.

Unsupported: workspaceType

ghcSimple.workspaceType was deprecated and now has no effect. Please consider other options. You will be shown a warning if a set ghcSimple.workspaceType is detected and will be prompted to remove it.

What features are there?

• ✔️ means implemented
• 🔧 means todo
• 🤔 means considering
• ❓ means not tested

This list of supported project types is also the priority of various configurations, from highest to lowest:

• ✔️ replCommand
• hie.yaml-compatible configuration
  • ✔️ cabal cradle
  • ✔️ stack cradle
  • ✔️ ❓ multi cradle
  • 🤔 bios cradle
  • Various other details
    • ✔️ stackYaml
    • ✔️ components
  • ✔️ ❓ dependencies option
  • ✔️ cradle: cabal: and cradle: stack: without further configuration
    • These will only run cabal repl and stack repl respectively. Detection of components is not supported with this approach.
• ghcid-compatible configuration
  • 🤔 .ghcid
• Implicit configuration
  • ✔️ ❓ stack projects
  • ✔️ cabal projects
  • 🤔 Detection of components based on file path
  • ✔️ bare projects, with stack exec ghci or ghci

Some other features:

• ✔️ Configuration: Whether workspace GHCi sessions linger after all documents are closed
• 🤔 Exposing an API to allow other extensions to use vgs-bios

[dramforever]

I haven't tested this, but implicit-hie might be able to generate an hie.yaml file for you

[dramforever]

Manual testing seems to indicate that most things are working as intended. I think this is as much feedback as I'm going to get just asking around. Let's ship it!