+++ /dev/null
- The Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 2.02
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-We are pleased to announce the first release of the Glasgow Haskell
-Compiler (GHC, version 2.02) for *Haskell 1.4*. Sources and binaries
-are freely available by anonymous FTP and on the World-Wide Web;
-details below.
-
-Haskell is "the" standard lazy functional programming language; the
-current language version is 1.4, agreed in March, 1997. The Haskell
-Report is online at
-
- http://haskell.org/report/
-
-GHC 2.02 is a beta-quality release:
-
- * It is reliable.
- It has been extensively tested against a large suite of Haskell 1.2
- programs, but not so extensively tested against Haskell 1.4 programs
- because we don't have a comprehensive set (Donations of Haskell 1.4
- programs to our test suite are most welcome).
-
- * It should generate reasonably good code.
- All the optimisations that GHC 0.29 used to do are back in, with
- the exception of specialisation. It ought to be the case that
- GHC 2.02 outperforms GHC 0.29, because it has a much better
- handle on cross-module inlining, but we know for certain that
- this isn't always the case. We have yet to make a systematic
- comparison. In short, this is not the moment to switch from 0.29
- if you Really Care about performance. 2.02 does, however,
- generate much better code than 2.01.
-
- (Please send us programs where 2.02 does noticeably worse than 0.29.)
-
- * It is more expensive than it should be.
- GHC 2.02 has received even less attention to its own performance.
- At present it eats more space and time than GHC 0.29, especially
- for very small programs. We'll work on this.
-
- * A couple of Haskell 1.4 features are incompletely supported,
- notably polymorphic strictness annotations, and Unicode.
-
-If you want to use Haskell 1.4, this is a good moment to switch. If
-you don't need the Haskell 1.4 extensions, then stay with GHC 0.29.
-If you want to hack on GHC itself, then 2.02 is definitely for you.
-The release notes comment further on this point.
-
-GHC 2.02 is substantially changed from 2.01. Changes worth noting
-include:
-
- * The whole front end, which deals with the module system, has
- been rewritten. The interface file format has changed.
-
- * GHC 2.02 is released together with Green Card, a C foreign language
- interface for GHC. Green card is a pre-processor that
- scans Haskell source files for Green Card directives, which
- it expands into tons of "ccall" boilerplate that marshalls
- your arguments to and from C.
-
- * GHC 2.02 is available for Win32 platforms, which, from now on,
- is a fully supported platform for GHC.
-
- * GHC 2.02 supports full cross module inlining. Unlike 0.29 and
- its predecessors, inlining can happen even if the inlined body
- mentions a function or type that is not itself exported. This is
- one place Haskell 1.4's new module system really pays off.
-
- * Like 2.01, GHC 2.02 aborts a compilation if it decides that
- nothing that the module imports *and acually uses* has changed.
- This decision is now taken by the compiler itself, rather than
- by a Perl script (as in 2.01) which sometimes got it wrong.
-
- * The ghc/lib libraries are much more systematically organised.
-
- * There's a completely new "make" system. This will mainly affect people
- who want the source distribution, who will hopefully find it much, much,
- easier than grappling with the old Jmakefiles. Even for binary
- installation, the procedure is a little simpler, though.
-
-Please see the release notes for a complete discussion of What's New.
-
-To run this release, you need a machine with 16+MB memory (more if
-building from sources), GNU C (`gcc'), and `perl'. We have seen GHC
-2.01 work on these platforms: alpha-dec-osf2, hppa1.1-hp-hpux9,
-sparc-sun-{sunos4,solaris2}, mips-sgi-irix5, and
-i386-unknown-{linux,solaris2,freebsd,cygwin32}. Similar platforms
-should work with minimal hacking effort. The installer's guide
-give a full what-ports-work report.
-
-Binaries are distributed in `bundles', e.g. a "profiling bundle" or a
-"concurrency bundle" for your platform. Just grab the ones you need.
-
-Once you have the distribution, please follow the pointers in
-ghc/README to find all of the documentation about this release. NB:
-preserve modification times when un-tarring the files (no `m' option
-for tar, please)!
-
-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.
-
-Simon Peyton Jones
-
-Dated: March 1997
-
-Relevant URLs on the World-Wide Web:
-
-GHC home page http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/fp/software/ghc/
-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 GHC 2.02:
-
-The easy way is to go to the WWW GHC distribution page, which is
-self-explanatory:
-
- ftp://ftp.dcs.gla.ac.uk/pub/haskell/glasgow/README.html
-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-Otherwise you can use the old anonymous FTP method from the main Haskell
-archive sites, in the directory pub/haskell/glasgow:
-
- ftp.dcs.gla.ac.uk (130.209.240.50)
- ftp.cs.chalmers.se (129.16.227.140)
- haskell.cs.yale.edu (128.36.11.43)
-
- [BUT: the latter two sites may take a while to get up to date.]
-
-The Glasgow site is mirrored by src.doc.ic.ac.uk (146.169.43.1), in
-computing/programming/languages/haskell/glasgow.
-
-These are the available files (.gz files are gzipped) -- some are `on
-demand', ask if you don't see them:
-
-ghc-2.02-src.tar.gz The source distribution; about 3MB.
-
-ghc-2.02.ANNOUNCE This file.
-
-ghc-2.02.{README,RELEASE-NOTES} From the distribution; for those who
- want to peek before FTPing...
-
-ghc-2.02-ps-docs.tar.gz Main GHC documents in PostScript format; in
- case your TeX setup doesn't agree with our
- DVI files...
-
-ghc-2.02-<platform>.tar.gz Basic binary distribution for a particular
- <platform>. Unpack and go: you can compile
- and run Haskell programs with nothing but one
- of these files. NB: does *not* include
- profiling (see below).
-
- <platform> ==> alpha-dec-osf2
- hppa1.1-hp-hpux9
- i386-unknown-freebsd
- i386-unknown-linux
- i386-unknown-solaris2
- i386-unknown-cygwin32
- m68k-sun-sunos4
- mips-sgi-irix5
- sparc-sun-sunos4
- sparc-sun-solaris2
-
-ghc-2.02-<bundle>-<platform>.tar.gz
-
- <platform> ==> as above
- <bundle> ==> prof (profiling)
- conc (concurrent Haskell)
- par (parallel)
- gran (GranSim parallel simulator)
- ticky (`ticky-ticky' counts -- for implementors)
- prof-conc (profiling for "conc[urrent]")
- prof-ticky (ticky for "conc[urrent]")
-
-ghc-2.02-hc-files.tar.gz Basic set of intermediate C (.hc) files for the
- compiler proper, the prelude, and `Hello,
- world'. Used for bootstrapping the system.
- About 4MB.
-
projects / ghc-hetmet.git / blobdiff