X-Git-Url: http://git.megacz.com/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=ghc%2FANNOUNCE;h=c5cbae687fa4ffcbe120d329cbb30e553d6c16d8;hb=be44e76beb4d5c1dcdc57cee65220d479117cb21;hp=809df2d91e593204b62b22dc4ff9ebeb84e53f6a;hpb=62cb9a07d020c5935335cf325addae1cfdc34d0f;p=ghc-hetmet.git diff --git a/ghc/ANNOUNCE b/ghc/ANNOUNCE index 809df2d..c5cbae6 100644 --- a/ghc/ANNOUNCE +++ b/ghc/ANNOUNCE @@ -1,113 +1,116 @@ - The Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 4.06 - ============================================== -We are pleased to announce a new release of the Glasgow Haskell -Compiler (GHC), version 4.06. The source distribution is freely -available via the World-Wide Web and through anon. FTP; details below. + ============================================================= + The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 6.4 + ============================================================= -Haskell is "the" 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 +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: - http://www.haskell.org/ + - GADTs (Generalised Abstract Datatypes) are supported -GHC's Web page lives at + - STM (Software Transactional Memory) is implemented - http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ + - Full support for Cabal and a much improved package framework -+ What's new -============= + - Better support for mutually-recursive modules -This should be a stable release. We have not made major changes -since 4.04 to the core compiler, but we have fixed lots of bugs. -We believe that 4.06 is in a nice stable well-tested state. (Ha!) + - A complete rewrite of the back end -Apart from that, there are the following changes + - Accurate source locations in error messages - - Major library reorganisation. All libraries, except the ones that - are part of the Haskell 98 *language* specification, have moved to - fptools/hslibs/. The hslibs tree is independent of GHC, shared between - GHC, Hugs, and (we hope) other Haskell implementations. - The idea is to make it easier for people to contribute and maintain - libraries. + - Lots of new libraries - The hslibs/ tree is organised in a Java-like fashion. Details in - the new Library guide: - http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/4.06/hslibs/book1.html +The full release notes are here: - Existing programs that use the -syslib flag may need to change which - syslibs they include. + http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/6.4/html/users_guide/release-6-4.html - - Support for "foreign export dynamic". +How to get it +~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +The easy way is to go to the WWW page, which should be self-explanatory: - - Clean up of concurrent I/O system; in particular, I/O is now non-blocking, - except (alas) on stdout/stderr for tiresome reasons. + http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ - - Some refinements to the exceptions mechanism: - http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/4.06/users_guide/release-4-06.html#exc-changes-406 +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. - - More performance tuning: compiled programs now allocate 10% less memory - than 4.04 +Packages will appear as they are built - if the package for your +system isn't available yet, please try again later. -For full details see the release notes: - http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/4.06/users_guide/release-4-06.html -+ Mailing lists -================ +Background +~~~~~~~~~~ +Haskell is a standard lazy functional programming language; the +current language version is Haskell 98, agreed in December 1998 and +revised December 2002. -We run mailing lists for GHC users and bug reports; to subscribe, send -mail to majordomo@haskell.org; the msg body should be: +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. - subscribe glasgow-haskell- Your Name +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). -Please send bug reports about GHC to glasgow-haskell-bugs@haskell.org ; GHC -users hang out on glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org - -+ On-line GHC-related resources -================================ +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/Department/Staff/mpj/faq.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/~gmh/faq.html + + +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: -+ How to get it -================ + * i386-unknown-{linux,*bsd,mingw32} + * sparc-sun-solaris2 + * powerpc-apple-darwin (MacOS X) + * powerpc-apple-linux -The easy way is to go to the WWW page, which should be -self-explanatory: +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/ + http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/building/ -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)! +Mailing lists +~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +We run mailing lists for GHC users and bug reports; to subscribe, use +the web interfaces at -+ System requirements -====================== + http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users + http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-bugs -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: +There are several other haskell and ghc-related mailing lists on +www.haskell.org; for the full list, see - * i386-unknown-{linux,solaris2,freebsd,netbsd,cygwin32} - * sparc-sun-{sunos4,solaris2} - * hppa1.1-hp-hpux{9,10} + http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ -Ports to the following platforms should be relatively easy, but -haven't been tested due to lack of time/hardware: +Please report bugs using our SourceForge page at + + http://sourceforge.net/projects/ghc/ - * alpha-dec-osf{2,3} - * mips-sgi-irix{5,6} - * {rs6000,powerpc}-ibm-aix +or send them to glasgow-haskell-bugs@haskell.org. -The builder's guide included in distribution gives a complete -run-down of what-ports-work; an on-line version can be found at +GHC users hang out on glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org. Bleeding +edge CVS users party on cvs-ghc@haskell.org. - http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/4.06/building_guide/installing.html