- The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 5.00
+ ============================================================
+ The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 5.02
============================================================
We are pleased to announce a new major release of the Glasgow Haskell
-Compiler (GHC), version 5.00. The source distribution is freely
-available via the World-Wide Web and through anon. FTP, under a
-BSD-style license. See below for download details. Pre-built
-packages for Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and Win32 are also available.
+Compiler (GHC), version 5.02.
-Haskell is a standard lazy functional programming language; the
-current language version is Haskell 98, agreed in December 1998.
+This is the first version of GHC that has all of the following:
-GHC is a state-of-the-art programming suite for Haskell. Included is
-an optimising compiler generating good code for a variety of
-platforms, together with an interactive system for convenient, quick
-development. The distribution includes space and time profiling
-facilities, a large collection of libraries, and support for various
-language extensions, including concurrency, exceptions, and foreign
-language interfaces (C, C++, whatever).
+ * An interactive read-eval-print loop, similar to Hugs.
+ You can load a mixture of compiled and interpreted modules;
+ in particular, you automatically use the precompiled libraries,
+ so your "interpreted" programs often run pretty fast.
-A wide variety of Haskell related resources (tutorials, libraries,
-specifications, documentation, compilers, interpreters, references,
-contact information, links to research groups) are available from the
-Haskell home page at
+ * Works solidly on Windows platforms. Installation is simple
+ (Installshield); you don't have to install anything else;
+ and GHC does not get confused if you also happen to
+ have (say) Cygwin installed.
- http://www.haskell.org/
+ * Implements the changes adopted for the (now almost finalised)
+ Revised Haskell 98 Language and Library Reports.
+
+ * The ability to emit "External Core", a documented typed
+ intermediate language, suitable for slurping up into other
+ tools. [Andrew Tolmach's work.]
+
+ * A particularly thorough pre-release test programme.
+ Some releases are more solid than others; this one is
+ at the solid end of the spectrum. We fondly hope.
+
+So if you have been waiting to upgrade your GHC 4.08, this is
+the moment.
-GHC's Web page lives at
+
+How to get it
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+The easy way is to go to the WWW page, which should be self-explanatory:
http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
+We supply binary builds in the native package format for various
+flavours of Linux and BSD, and in InstallShield form for Windows
+folks. Binary builds for other platforms are available as a .tar.gz
+which can be installed wherever you want. The source distribution is
+also available from the same place.
+Once you have the distribution, please follow the pointers in the
+README file to find all of the documentation about this release.
- What's new
-============
-5.00 has been majorly revamped since the previous stable version, 4.08.2.
-This should be a stable release. Major changes since 4.08.2 are:
+More details about what's new
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- - An interactive system, similar in style to Hugs. You can interactively
- load and unload modules, run expressions, ask the types of things.
- Module dependencies are tracked and chased automatically.
- Combinations of compiled and interpreted modules may be used.
- All the GHC libraries are available in interactive mode, as are
- most of the Glasgow extensions to Haskell 98. Compilation in
- interactive mode is fast enough to be useful.
+5.02 incorporates many small refinements and bug fixes over the previous
+stable release (5.00.2). There are no major language changes.
- - Batch compilation of multiple modules at once, with automatic
- dependency chasing. For large programs this can halve compilation
- times, and removes the need for Makefiles.
+ - Implements Haskell 98 (revised)
- - Enhanced package (library) management system. Packages may be
- installed and removed from an installation using the ghc-pkg tool.
+ - Ability to emit External Core. (But GhC can't read External Core
+ back in. Yet.)
- - Initial Unicode support - the Char type is now 31 bits.
+ - Much improved support for Windows platforms. Binary builds are
+ now entirely freestanding. There's no need to install Cygwin or
+ Mingwin to use it. It's a one-click-install-and-off-you-go story now.
- - Sparc native code generator, giving much faster compilation on sparcs.
- (Native code generation for x86s has been available for a while).
+ - Several small changes to bring GHC into line with the newest Haskell 98
+ report.
- - Improved heap profiling - you can restrict heap profiles
- by type, closure description, cost centre, and module.
+ - GHCi (the interactive system) now works on Windows.
- - Support for the latest Foreign Function Interface (FFI)
- proposals.
+ - Partial FFI support in GHCi. At the moment, foreign import (both
+ static and dynamic) is supported on x86 and sparc platforms.
- - A language extension: parallel list comprehensions.
+ - A compacting garbage collector, to try and reduce space use.
- - The usual vast stack of bug fixes. Most reported bugs have been
- fixed.
+ - Ability to disconnect built-in numeric syntax from the supplied
+ Prelude. This allows you to define your own arithmetic packages,
+ which Haskell98 doesn't quite support.
-For full details see the release notes:
+ - Experimental: partial support for hierarchical module names.
- http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/5.00/set/release-5-00.html
+ - Experimental: following heroic hacking by Ken Shan, 5.02 now
+ works on Alpha (Tru64 only). Many 64-bit bugs have been shaken
+ out. At the moment only the batch-mode compiler works -- no GHCi
+ or native code generator yet.
+We've found and fixed more bugs than you could possibly imagine. A
+big thank-you to all those who reported bugs in the 5.00.X series. We
+claim to have fixed almost all reported bugs. In general we've spent
+a large amount of effort trying to improve the stability of the
+system relative to 5.00.X. (Famous last words ...)
+For full details see the release notes:
- How to get it
-===============
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/5.02/set/release-5-02.html
-The easy way is to go to the WWW page, which should be
-self-explanatory:
- http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
+Background
+~~~~~~~~~~
+Haskell is a standard lazy functional programming language; the
+current language version is Haskell 98, agreed in December 1998.
-We supply binary builds in .rpm/.deb form for all you Linux junkies
-out there, and in InstallShield form for Windows folks. Everybody
-else gets a .tar.gz which can be installed where you want.
+GHC is a state-of-the-art programming suite for Haskell. Included is
+an optimising compiler generating good code for a variety of
+platforms, together with an interactive system for convenient, quick
+development. The distribution includes space and time profiling
+facilities, a large collection of libraries, and support for various
+language extensions, including concurrency, exceptions, and foreign
+language interfaces (C, whatever). GHC is distributed under a
+BSD-style open source license.
-Once you have the distribution, please follow the pointers in the
-README file to find all of the documentation about this release.
+A wide variety of Haskell related resources (tutorials, libraries,
+specifications, documentation, compilers, interpreters, references,
+contact information, links to research groups) are available from the
+Haskell home page at
+
+ http://www.haskell.org/
+
+GHC's Web page lives at
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
- On-line GHC-related resources
-===============================
+On-line GHC-related resources
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Relevant URLs on the World-Wide Web:
- System requirements
-=====================
-
-To compile programs with GHC, you need a machine with 32+MB memory, GNU C
+System requirements
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+To compile programs with GHC, you need a machine with 64+MB memory, GNU C
and perl. This release is known to work on the following platforms:
* i386-unknown-{linux,freebsd,mingw32}
The builder's guide included in distribution gives a complete
run-down of what ports work; an on-line version can be found at
- http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/5.00/building/building-guide.html
-
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/5.02/building/building-guide.html
- Mailing lists
-===============
+Mailing lists
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We run mailing lists for GHC users and bug reports; to subscribe, use
the web interfaces at
http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/
-Please send bug reports about GHC to glasgow-haskell-bugs@haskell.org;
+Please report bugs using our SourceForge page at
+
+ http://sourceforge.net/projects/ghc/
+
+or send them to glasgow-haskell-bugs@haskell.org.
+
GHC users hang out on glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org. Bleeding
edge CVS users party on cvs-ghc@haskell.org.
+
projects / ghc-hetmet.git / blobdiff