- The Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 2.04
- ==============================================
-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.
+ The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 5.00
+ ============================================================
-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:
+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.
- http://haskell.org/
+Haskell is a standard lazy functional programming language; the
+current language version is Haskell 98, agreed in December 1998.
+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).
-+ What's new
-=============
+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
-Release 2.04 represent work done through May '97; highlights include:
+ http://www.haskell.org/
- * Data constructors can now have polymophic fields, and ordinary
- functions can have polymoprhic arguments. Details on
+GHC's Web page lives at
- http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~simonpj/quantification.html
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
- Existential types coming, but not done yet.
- * Pattern guards implemented, see
-
- http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~simonpj/guards.html
- * Compiler can now compile itself (i.e., no real dependence on
- the Haskell 1.2 compiler anymore (version 0.29)).
+ What's new
+============
- * 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.
+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:
- * powerpc-ibm-aix is now a supported GHC platform, due to the
- Heroic Efforts of Andr\'e Santos <alms@di.ufpe.br>.
+ - 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.
- * 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.
+ - 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.
- * A couple of Haskell 1.4 features are still incompletely supported,
- notably polymorphic strictness annotations, and Unicode.
+ - Enhanced package (library) management system. Packages may be
+ installed and removed from an installation using the ghc-pkg tool.
-Please see the release notes for a complete discussion of What's New.
+ - Initial Unicode support - the Char type is now 31 bits.
+ - Sparc native code generator, giving much faster compilation on sparcs.
+ (Native code generation for x86s has been available for a while).
-+ Mailing lists
-================
+ - Improved heap profiling - you can restrict heap profiles
+ by type, closure description, cost centre, and module.
-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:
+ - Support for the latest Foreign Function Interface (FFI)
+ proposals. Marcin Kowalczyk's hsc2hs tool is included.
- subscribe glasgow-haskell-<which> Your Name <your-email@where.you.are>
+ - Language extensions: parallel list comprehensions and functional
+ dependencies.
-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
+ - The usual huge collection of bug fixes. Most reported bugs have
+ been fixed.
+For full details see the release notes:
-+ On-line GHC-related resources
-================================
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/5.00/set/release-5-00.html
-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/
-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:
-The easy way is to go to the WWW GHC distribution page, which should
-be self-explanatory:
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
- ftp://ftp.dcs.gla.ac.uk/pub/haskell/glasgow/README.html
+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.
+
+
+
+ On-line GHC-related resources
+===============================
+
+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
+=====================
+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:
-+ System requirements
-======================
+ * i386-unknown-{linux,freebsd,mingw32}
+ * sparc-sun-solaris2
-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:
+Ports to the following platforms should be relatively easy (for a
+wunderhacker), but haven't been tested due to lack of time/hardware:
- * alpha-dec-osf2
* hppa1.1-hp-hpux{9,10}
- * sparc-sun-{sunos4,solaris2}
+ * i386-unknown-solaris2
+ * alpha-dec-osf{2,3}
* mips-sgi-irix{5,6}
- * i386-unknown-{linux,solaris2,freebsd,cygwin32}.
- * powerpc-ibm-aix
+ * {rs6000,powerpc}-ibm-aix
+
+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/
-Similar platforms should work with minimal hacking effort. The installer's
-guide included in distribution gives a complete run-down of what-ports-work.
+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