- The Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 2.04
+ The Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 4.06
==============================================
We are pleased to announce a new release of the Glasgow Haskell
-Compiler (GHC), version 2.04. Source distribution is freely available
-via the World-Wide Web and anon. FTP; details below.
+Compiler (GHC), version 4.06. 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:
+current language version is Haskell 98, agreed in December 1998.
+Haskell related information is available from the Haskell home page at
- http://haskell.org/
+ http://www.haskell.org/
+GHC's Web page lives at
+
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
+ What's new
=============
-Release 2.04 represent work done through May '97; highlights include:
-
- * Data constructors can now have polymophic fields, and ordinary
- functions can have polymoprhic arguments. Details on
+This should be a stable release. We have not made major changes
+since 4.04 to the core compiler, but we have fixed lots of bugs.
+We believe that 4.06 is in a nice stable well-tested state. (Ha!)
- http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~simonpj/quantification.html
+Apart from that, there are the following changes
- Existential types coming, but not done yet.
+ - Major library reorganisation. All libraries, except the ones that
+ are part of the Haskell 98 *language* specification, have moved to
+ fptools/hslibs/. The hslibs tree is independent of GHC, shared between
+ GHC, Hugs, and (we hope) other Haskell implementations.
+ The idea is to make it easier for people to contribute and maintain
+ libraries.
- * Pattern guards implemented, see
-
- http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~simonpj/guards.html
+ The hslibs/ tree is organised in a Java-like fashion. Details in
+ the new Library guide:
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/4.06/hslibs/book1.html
- * Compiler can now compile itself (i.e., no real dependence on
- the Haskell 1.2 compiler anymore (version 0.29)).
+ Existing programs that use the -syslib flag may need to change which
+ syslibs they include.
- * Faster compilation
- Compilation speeds has improved since 2.02, although it still slower
- than GHC-0.29, the Good Old Compiler. (the gap is narrowing, though!)
-
- * Code quality is better, the simplifier and inlining machinery has been
- refurbished. Not sure how much better.
+ - Support for "foreign export dynamic".
- * powerpc-ibm-aix is now a supported GHC platform, due to the
- Heroic Efforts of Andr\'e Santos <alms@di.ufpe.br>.
+ - Clean up of concurrent I/O system; in particular, I/O is now non-blocking,
+ except (alas) on stdout/stderr for tiresome reasons.
- * It has been tested against a large suite of (mostly) Haskell 1.2
- programs (the NoFib suite). Bunch of bugs related to new
- Haskell 1.4 has been weeded out.
+ - Some refinements to the exceptions mechanism:
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/4.06/users_guide/release-4-06.html#exc-changes-406
- * A couple of Haskell 1.4 features are still incompletely supported,
- notably polymorphic strictness annotations, and Unicode.
+ - More performance tuning: compiled programs now allocate 10% less memory
+ than 4.04
-Please see the release notes for a complete discussion of What's New.
+For full details see the release notes:
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/4.06/users_guide/release-4-06.html
+ 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:
+mail to majordomo@haskell.org; 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
+Please send bug reports about GHC to glasgow-haskell-bugs@haskell.org ; GHC
+users hang out on glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org
+ 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/
+GHC home page http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
+Haskell home page http://www.haskell.org/
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 GHC distribution page, which should
-be self-explanatory:
+The easy way is to go to the WWW page, which should be
+self-explanatory:
- ftp://ftp.dcs.gla.ac.uk/pub/haskell/glasgow/README.html
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
Once you have the distribution, please follow the pointers in the
README file to find all of the documentation about this release. NB:
+ System requirements
======================
-To compile up this source-only release, you need a machine with 16+MB
-memory, GNU C (`gcc'), `perl' plus a version of GHC installed (either
-version 0.29 or 2.02/2.03). We have seen GHC work on these platforms:
+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 (3.02 at
+least). This release is known to work on the following platforms:
- * alpha-dec-osf2
- * hppa1.1-hp-hpux{9,10}
+ * i386-unknown-{linux,solaris2,freebsd,netbsd,cygwin32}
* sparc-sun-{sunos4,solaris2}
+ * hppa1.1-hp-hpux{9,10}
+
+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}
* mips-sgi-irix{5,6}
- * i386-unknown-{linux,solaris2,freebsd,cygwin32}.
- * powerpc-ibm-aix
+ * {rs6000,powerpc}-ibm-aix
-Similar platforms should work with minimal hacking effort. The installer's
-guide included in distribution gives a complete run-down of what-ports-work.
+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/4.06/building_guide/installing.html
projects / ghc-hetmet.git / blobdiff