- The Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 2.02
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ 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
http://haskell.cs.yale.edu/1.4/haskell-report.html
-GHC 2.02 is a beta-quality release:
+GHC 2.02 is a beta-quality release - some highlights:
* 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 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 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 there's a good chance that
- there are performance "holes" lurking. We have yet to make
- a systematic comparison. (Please send us programs where 2.02
- does noticeably worse than 0.29.)
+ 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 there's a good chance that
+ there are performance "holes" lurking. We have yet to make
+ a systematic comparison. (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.
+ 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're working on this.
* A couple of Haskell 1.4 features are incompletely supported,
notably polymorphic strictness annotations, and Unicode.
it expands into tons of "ccall" boilerplate that marshalls
your arguments to and from C.
- * GHC 2.02 is available for Windows NT. From now on, Windows NT
- will be a fully supported platform for GHC.
+ * GHC 2.02 is available for Win32 platforms. From now on, Win32
+ (Windows NT and Windows 95) will be a fully supported platform
+ for GHC.
- * GHC 2.02 supports full cross moudule inlining. Unlike 0.29 and
+ * 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.
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}. Similar platforms should work
-with minimal hacking effort. The installer's guide give a full
-what-ports-work report.
+i386-unknown-{linux,solaris2,freebsd,cygwin32}. Similar platforms
+should work with minimal hacking effort. The installer's guide give a
+complete run-down of what-ports-work.
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:
+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)!
These are the available files (.gz files are gzipped) -- some are `on
demand', ask if you don't see them:
+README.html A WWW `front-end' to the contents of the glasgow
+ directory.
+
ghc-2.02-src.tar.gz The source distribution; about 3MB.
ghc-2.02.ANNOUNCE This file.
use a different set of interface files than
the ones in *-src.tar.gz. (The installation
guide will advise you of this.)
+