- 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 5.02
+ ============================================================
-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 5.02. The source distribution is freely
+available via the World-Wide Web, 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)).
- * 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.
+ What's new
+============
- * powerpc-ibm-aix is now a supported GHC platform, due to the
- Heroic Efforts of Andr\'e Santos <alms@di.ufpe.br>.
+5.02 incorporates many small refinements and bug fixes over the previous
+stable release (5.00.2). There are no major changes.
- * 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.
+ - 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.
- * A couple of Haskell 1.4 features are still incompletely supported,
- notably polymorphic strictness annotations, and Unicode.
+ - Several small changes to bring GHC into line with the newest Haskell 98
+ report.
-Please see the release notes for a complete discussion of What's New.
+ - GHCi (the interactive system) now works on Windows.
+ - Partial FFI support in GHCi. At the moment, foreign import (both
+ static and dynamic) is supported on x86 and sparc platforms.
-+ Mailing lists
-================
+ - A compacting garbage collector, to try and reduce space use.
-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:
+ - Experimental: partial support for hierarchical module names.
- subscribe glasgow-haskell-<which> Your Name <your-email@where.you.are>
+ - 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.
-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
+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:
-+ On-line GHC-related resources
-================================
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/5.02/set/release-5-02.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
+=====================
-+ 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:
-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:
+ * 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:
- * 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/5.02/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.