- The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 5.02
- ============================================================
+ =============================================================
+ The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 6.4
+ =============================================================
-We are pleased to announce a new major release of the Glasgow Haskell
-Compiler (GHC), version 5.02. 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.
+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
-============
-
-5.02 incorporates many small refinements and bug fixes over the previous
-stable release (5.00.2). There are no major changes.
-
- - 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.
+ - GADTs (Generalised Abstract Datatypes) are supported
- - Several small changes to bring GHC into line with the newest Haskell 98
- report.
+ - STM (Software Transactional Memory) is implemented
- - GHCi (the interactive system) now works on Windows.
+ - Full support for Cabal and a much improved package framework
- - Partial FFI support in GHCi. At the moment, foreign import (both
- static and dynamic) is supported on x86 and sparc platforms.
+ - Better support for mutually-recursive modules
- - A compacting garbage collector, to try and reduce space use.
+ - A complete rewrite of the back end
- - Experimental: partial support for hierarchical module names.
+ - Accurate source locations in error messages
- - 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.
+ - Lots of new libraries
-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 ...)
+The full release notes are here:
-For full details see the release notes:
+ http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/6.4/html/users_guide/release-6-4.html
- http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/5.02/set/release-5-02.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 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.
+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:
- System requirements
-=====================
-
-To compile programs with GHC, you need a machine with 64+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:
+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
- * hppa1.1-hp-hpux{9,10}
- * i386-unknown-solaris2
- * alpha-dec-osf{2,3}
- * mips-sgi-irix{5,6}
- * {rs6000,powerpc}-ibm-aix
+ http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/building/
-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
-===============
+Mailing lists
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We run mailing lists for GHC users and bug reports; to subscribe, use
the web interfaces at
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