[smichael]

Thanks. Well if we assume "arbitrary haskell compiler" means GHC and stack (or just stack), "make install" will compile it. But yes, there will be much downloading, unless you just happen to have all those haskell libs cached locally from previous builds.

"stack install hledger" would compile just the command line tool (not the curses & web tools), so less downloading.

For end-users who want minimum downloading/building, we recommend one of the binary packages on the download page (nix, docker, homebrew, windows/wine), but that's not you I think.