The Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 4.01
	    ==============================================

We are pleased to announce a new release of the Glasgow Haskell
Compiler (GHC), version 4.01.  The source distribution is freely
available via the World-Wide Web and through anon. FTP; details below.

Haskell is "the" standard lazy functional programming language; the
current language version is 1.4, agreed in April, 1997.  Haskell
related information is available from the Haskell home page at

	http://haskell.org/

+ What's new
=============

GHC 4.01 is a small increment over 4.00.  Many bugs have been fixed.
The following features are new:

	* Weak pointers,
	* The foreign function interface is now complete.

In addition, bootstrapping the compiler should now work out of the box.

The following things have not been fixed yet:

	* The native code generator is still flaky, and is turned off by
	  default for the time being.
	* The profiler is still flaky.

+ Mailing lists
================

We run mailing lists for GHC users and bug reports; to subscribe, send
mail to majordomo@dcs.gla.ac.uk; the msg body should be:

    subscribe glasgow-haskell-<which> Your Name <your-email@where.you.are>

Please send bug reports about GHC to glasgow-haskell-bugs@dcs.gla.ac.uk ; GHC
users hang out on glasgow-haskell-users@dcs.gla.ac.uk


+ On-line GHC-related resources
================================

Relevant URLs on the World-Wide Web:

GHC home page    	  http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/fp/software/ghc/
Haskell home page	  http://haskell.org/
Glasgow FP group page     http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/fp/
comp.lang.functional FAQ  http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/Department/Staff/mpj/faq.html


+ How to get it
================

The easy way is to go to the WWW page, which should be
self-explanatory:

	http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/fp/software/ghc/

Once you have the distribution, please follow the pointers in the
README file to find all of the documentation about this release.  NB:
preserve modification times when un-tarring the files (no `m' option
for tar, please)!


+ System requirements
======================

To compile up this source-only release, you need a machine with 32+MB
memory, GNU C (`gcc'), `perl' plus a version of GHC installed (version
2.10 at least).  This release is known to work on the following platforms:

  * i386-unknown-{linux,solaris2,freebsd,cygwin32}
  * sparc-sun-{sunos4,solaris2}

Ports to the following platforms should be relatively easy, but
haven't been tested due to lack of time/hardware:

  * alpha-dec-osf{2,3}
  * hppa1.1-hp-hpux{9,10}
  * mips-sgi-irix{5,6}
  * {rs6000,powerpc}-ibm-aix

The installer's guide included in distribution gives a complete
run-down of what-ports-work; an on-line version can be found at

   http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/fp/software/ghc/4.01/installation_guide/installing_toc.html