- The Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 4.04
- ==============================================
-We are pleased to announce a new release of the Glasgow Haskell
-Compiler (GHC), version 4.04. The source distribution is freely
-available via the World-Wide Web and through anon. FTP; details below.
+ The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 5.00
+ ============================================================
-Haskell is "the" standard lazy functional programming language; the
+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.
+
+Haskell is a standard lazy functional programming language; the
current language version is Haskell 98, agreed in December 1998.
-Haskell related information is available from the Haskell home page at
- http://www.haskell.org/
+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).
+
+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/
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
-+ What's new
-=============
- - GHC is now officially Open Source, see the LICENSE file in the
- distribution for details.
- - Rewrite rules can be specified in the source using the RULES
- pragma. This is used for automatic fusion of common list functions.
+ What's new
+============
- - Performance tuning: compiled programs now allocate 30% less
- and run 20% faster on average compared to GHC 4.02.
+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:
- - GHC now uses a Happy parser instead of the old yacc/lex one.
+ - 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 (to bytecode) is about three times faster than
+ compiling to object code.
-For full details see the release notes:
+ - 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.
- http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/users_guide/users_guide-1.html#ss1.4
+ - Enhanced package (library) management system. Packages may be
+ installed and removed from an installation using the ghc-pkg tool.
-+ Mailing lists
-================
+ - Initial Unicode support - the Char type is now 31 bits.
-We run mailing lists for GHC users and bug reports; to subscribe, send
-mail to majordomo@haskell.org; the msg body should be:
+ - Sparc native code generator, giving much faster compilation on sparcs.
+ (Native code generation for x86s has been available for a while).
- subscribe glasgow-haskell-<which> Your Name <your-email@where.you.are>
+ - Improved heap profiling - you can restrict heap profiles
+ by type, closure description, cost centre, and module.
-Please send bug reports about GHC to glasgow-haskell-bugs@haskell.org ; GHC
-users hang out on glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org
+ - Support for the latest Foreign Function Interface (FFI)
+ proposals. Marcin Kowalczyk's hsc2hs tool is included.
+ - Language extensions: parallel list comprehensions and functional
+ dependencies.
-+ On-line GHC-related resources
-================================
+ - The usual huge collection of bug fixes. Most reported bugs have
+ been fixed.
-Relevant URLs on the World-Wide Web:
+For full details see the release notes:
+
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/5.00/set/release-5-00.html
-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
-================
+ How to get it
+===============
The easy way is to go to the WWW page, which should be
self-explanatory:
- http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
+ 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. Everybody else gets a .tar.gz which can be installed where you
+want.
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)!
+README file to find all of the documentation about this release.
-+ 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 (3.02 at
-least). This release is known to work on the following platforms:
+ On-line GHC-related resources
+===============================
- * i386-unknown-{linux,solaris2,freebsd,cygwin32}
- * sparc-sun-{sunos4,solaris2}
- * hppa1.1-hp-hpux{9,10}
+Relevant URLs on the World-Wide Web:
+
+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/~gmh/faq.html
+
+
+
+ System requirements
+=====================
-Ports to the following platforms should be relatively easy, but
-haven't been tested due to lack of time/hardware:
+To compile programs with GHC, you need a machine with 32+MB memory, GNU C
+and perl. This release is known to work on the following platforms:
+ * i386-unknown-{linux,freebsd,mingw32}
+ * sparc-sun-solaris2
+
+Ports to the following platforms should be relatively easy (for a
+wunderhacker), but haven't been tested due to lack of time/hardware:
+
+ * hppa1.1-hp-hpux{9,10}
+ * i386-unknown-solaris2
* alpha-dec-osf{2,3}
* 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
+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
+
+
+
+ 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/glasgow-haskell-users
+ http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-bugs
+
+There are several other haskell and ghc-related mailing lists on
+www.haskell.org; for the full list, see
+
+ http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/
+
+Please report bugs using our SourceForge page at
+
+ http://sourceforge.net/projects/ghc/
+
+or send them to glasgow-haskell-bugs@haskell.org.
- http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/installation_guide/installing.html
+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