X-Git-Url: http://git.megacz.com/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=ghc%2FANNOUNCE;h=c5cbae687fa4ffcbe120d329cbb30e553d6c16d8;hb=28a464a75e14cece5db40f2765a29348273ff2d2;hp=aed31f84a46a10db8457d0ca1bb9c47d7a3f20bb;hpb=5d8b92ea22f8c0a79c86624de2078dd62f6e845f;p=ghc-hetmet.git diff --git a/ghc/ANNOUNCE b/ghc/ANNOUNCE index aed31f8..c5cbae6 100644 --- a/ghc/ANNOUNCE +++ b/ghc/ANNOUNCE @@ -1,101 +1,70 @@ - The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 5.00 - ============================================================ + ============================================================= + The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 6.4 + ============================================================= -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. +The GHC Team is pleased to announce a new major release of GHC. It +has been a long time since the last major release (Dec 2003!), and a +lot has happened: -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). - -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/ - - - - What's new -============ - -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: - - - 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. + - GADTs (Generalised Abstract Datatypes) are supported - - 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. + - STM (Software Transactional Memory) is implemented - - Enhanced package (library) management system. Packages may be - installed and removed from an installation using the ghc-pkg tool. + - Full support for Cabal and a much improved package framework - - Initial Unicode support - the Char type is now 31 bits. + - Better support for mutually-recursive modules - - Sparc native code generator, giving much faster compilation on sparcs. - (Native code generation for x86s has been available for a while). + - A complete rewrite of the back end - - Improved heap profiling - you can restrict heap profiles - by type, closure description, cost centre, and module. + - Accurate source locations in error messages - - Support for the latest Foreign Function Interface (FFI) - proposals. Marcin Kowalczyk's hsc2hs tool is included. + - Lots of new libraries - - Language extensions: parallel list comprehensions and functional - dependencies. +The full release notes are here: - - The usual huge collection of bug fixes. Most reported bugs have - been fixed. + http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/6.4/html/users_guide/release-6-4.html -For full details see the release notes: - - http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/5.00/set/release-5-00.html +How to get it +~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +The easy way is to go to the WWW page, which should be self-explanatory: + http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ +We supply binary builds in the native package format for various +flavours of Linux and BSD, and in Windows Installer (MSI) form +for Windows folks. Binary builds for other platforms are available +as a .tar.gz which can be installed wherever you want. The source +distribution is also available from the same place. - How to get it -=============== +Packages will appear as they are built - if the package for your +system isn't available yet, please try again later. -The easy way is to go to the WWW page, which should be -self-explanatory: - http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ -We supply binary builds in .rpm/.deb form for all you Linux junkies -out there, and in InstallShield form for Windows folks. Everybody -else gets a .tar.gz which can be installed where you want. +Background +~~~~~~~~~~ +Haskell is a standard lazy functional programming language; the +current language version is Haskell 98, agreed in December 1998 and +revised December 2002. -Once you have the distribution, please follow the pointers in the -README file to find all of the documentation about this release. +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, whatever). GHC is distributed under a +BSD-style open source license. +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 (see below). - On-line GHC-related resources -=============================== +On-line GHC-related resources +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Relevant URLs on the World-Wide Web: @@ -105,34 +74,26 @@ 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 +System requirements +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +To compile programs with GHC, you need a machine with 64+MB memory, GCC and perl. This release is known to work on the following platforms: - * i386-unknown-{linux,freebsd,mingw32} + * i386-unknown-{linux,*bsd,mingw32} * sparc-sun-solaris2 + * powerpc-apple-darwin (MacOS X) + * powerpc-apple-linux -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 builder's guide included in distribution gives a complete -run-down of what ports work; an on-line version can be found at +Ports to other platforms are possible with varying degrees of +difficulty. The builder's guide on the web site gives a complete +run-down of what ports work and how to go about porting to a new +platform; it can be found at - http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/5.00/building/building-guide.html + http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/building/ - - Mailing lists -=============== - +Mailing lists +~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We run mailing lists for GHC users and bug reports; to subscribe, use the web interfaces at @@ -144,6 +105,12 @@ www.haskell.org; for the full list, see http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ -Please send bug reports about GHC to glasgow-haskell-bugs@haskell.org; +Please report bugs using our SourceForge page at + + http://sourceforge.net/projects/ghc/ + +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. +