<title>User-visible compiler changes</title>
<itemizedlist>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Majorly improved support for Windows platforms. Binary
+ builds are now entirely freestanding. There is no longer any
+ need to install Cygwin or Mingwin to use it. It's a
+ one-click-install-and-off-you-go story now.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
<listitem>
<para>Several small changes to bring GHC into line with the
newest Haskell 98 report.</para>
<para>Thanks to the heroic efforts of Ken Shan
<email>ken@digitas.harvard.edu</email>, GHC now works again on
the Alpha architecture (just Tru64 at the moment), and many
- (all?) of the 64-bit bugs have been shaken out.</para>
+ 64-bit bugs have been shaken out. Interactive mode and the
+ native code generator do not currently work, sorry.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
to omit code generation and all future compilation stages (see
<xref linkend="options-codegen">).</para>
</listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>New option <option>-package-conf
+ <replaceable>file</replaceable></option>. This makes GHC read
+ additional package descriptions from
+ <replaceable>file</replaceable>. See <xref
+ linkend="using-local-packages">.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para><option>+RTS
+ -i<replaceable>seconds</replaceable></option> flag reinstated for heap
+ profiling. See <xref linkend="rts-options-heap-prof">.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para><option>-funbox-strict-fields</option> now works
+ correctly. See <xref linkend="options-f">.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Many bug fixes related to implicit-parameter support.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Data declarations with no constructors are allowed. This
+ facilitates types whose only value is bottom, and which have
+ no representation.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ You can disconnect numeric syntax from the Prelude syntax.
+ Doing this means you can define your own arithmetic. The
+ relevant flag is <option>-fno-implicit-prelude</option>. See
+ <xref linkend="options-language">.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
</itemizedlist>
</sect2>
<sect2>
- <title>New experimental features</title>
+ <title>User-visible interpreter (GHCi) changes</title>
<itemizedlist>
- <!-- don't forget: 31-bit support -->
+ <listitem>
+ <para>GHCi now works on Windows.</para>
+ </listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>A compacting garbage collector has been added. It isn't
- on by default, because it is somewhat slower than the existing
- copying collector, but can be automatically enabled when
- memory gets tight by setting the maximum heap size (see <xref
- linkend="rts-options-gc">). Compaction works together with
- the existing generational scheme: it is only used on the
- oldest generation.</para>
+ <para>Partial FFI support in GHCi. At the moment, foreign
+ import (static and dynamic) are supported on x86 and sparc
+ platforms.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>New interpreter command <literal>:add</literal>, to add
+ modules to the current bunch. See
+ <xref linkend="ghci-commands">.</para>
</listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>New interpreter command <literal>:info</literal>, to provide
+ information on values, types and classes, a la Hugs. See
+ <xref linkend="ghci-commands">.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Multiple target modules are supported. You may specify
+ multiple modules for the <literal>:add</literal> and
+ <literal>:load</literal> commands. From the command line, you
+ may specify multiple modules when starting GHCi and when
+ compiling in <option>––make</option> mode. See
+ <xref linkend="ghci-commands">.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>New flags <option>-ignore-dot-ghci</option> and
+ <option>-read-dot-ghci</option>. See
+ <xref linkend="ghci-dot-files">.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>When starting GHCi from the command line, you may now
+ use the flags
+ <option>-L<replaceable>library-path</replaceable></option> and
+ <option>-l<replaceable>library-name</replaceable></option> to
+ specify libraries to be loaded into the interactive
+ session. See <xref linkend="ghci-invokation">.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
</itemizedlist>
</sect2>
</sect2>
<sect2>
+ <title>New experimental features</title>
+
+ <itemizedlist>
+ <!-- don't forget: 31-bit support -->
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Partial support for hierarchical module names.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Mucho hacking on the .NET code generator, including
+ some FFI extensions for .NET interop. It's still
+ severely b0rk3d, so won't do anything useful. Yet.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Emission of external Core format. The goal is for
+ other tools to be able to grab the Core resulting from GHC's
+ front end manglings and optimisations. Core format is
+ formally defined by the document <ulink url="http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/papers/core.ps.gz"
+ <citetitle>An External Representation for the GHC Core Language</citetitle></ulink>.
+ We also have sample
+ tools for reading, writing and typechecking external Core,
+ available in the source distribution directory <literal>/fptools/ghc/utils/ext-core</literal>.
+ Ultimately we plan that Core files can also be read by
+ GHC. The relevant flag is <option>-fext-core</option>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>A compacting garbage collector has been added. It isn't
+ on by default, because it is somewhat slower than the existing
+ copying collector, but can be automatically enabled when
+ memory gets tight by setting the maximum heap size (see <xref
+ linkend="rts-options-gc">). Compaction works together with
+ the existing generational scheme: it is only used on the
+ oldest generation. Despite the "experimental"
+ classification, we've jumped up and down quite significantly
+ on this code, and it seems stable.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </itemizedlist>
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2>
<title>Internal changes</title>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
by one written using the FFI. No externally visible
changes.</para>
</listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>The compiler has a new strictness-and-absence analyser,
+ which is alleged to help it generate better code.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
</itemizedlist>
</sect2>
projects / ghc-hetmet.git / blobdiff