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- The Glasgow Haskell Compiler
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Version 0.06 --- Hackers' release
-
-As many of you know, we have been working hard at Glasgow on a modular
-Haskell compiler. We are proud to announce its first public release.
-
-We are calling it a "Hackers' release" because it is not yet suitable
-for Haskell *programmers*. It is intended for *implementors* who are
-interested in using our compiler as a substrate for their own work.
-(A later version will indeed be a "Programmers' release".) We also
-hope that some *porters*, people who would like to see Haskell running
-on their system, will help us debug any Sun dependencies in our
-generated C files. Finally, the *curious* may simply want to see the
-World's Largest Haskell Program (40,000 lines?)!
-
-The compiler has the following characteristics:
-
- * It is written in Haskell.
-
- * It generates C as its target code.
-
- * It is specifically designed to be modular, so that others can
- use it as a "motherboard" into which they can "plug in" their
- latest whizzy strictness analyser, profiler, or whatever.
-
- * Internally, it uses the polymorphic second-order lambda calculus
- as a way to preserve correct type information in the face of
- substantial program transformations.
-
- * It implements unboxed values as described in [1]. In
- particular, the implementation of arithmetic and the exploitation
- of strictness analysis is handled just as described there.
-
- * Its back end is based on the Spineless Tagless G-machine, an
- abstract machine for non-strict functional languages. There is a
- detailed paper describing this work [2].
-
- * It plants code to gather quite a lot of simple profiling
- information.
-
- * Its runtime system is heavily configurable. For example, it
- comes complete with three different garbage collectors: two-space,
- one-space compacting, and Appel-style generational. Adding extra
- fields to heap objects (for debugging or profiling for example) is
- just a question of altering C macros; the Haskell source doesn't
- need to be recompiled. (Caveat: you have to alter them *right*!)
-
-The compiler also suffers its fair share of deficiencies:
-
- * The compiler itself is large and slow.
-
- * The code it generates is very, very unoptimised. Any
- comparisons you make of runtime speed with good existing compilers
- will be deeply unflattering. (Our next priority is optimisation.)
-
- * Several language features aren't dealt with. This has not
- prevented us from compiling and running several quite large
- Haskell programs.
-
-Please follow the pointers in the top-level README file to find all of
-the documentation in and about this release. Distribution info
-follows below.
-
-We hope you enjoy this system, and we look forward to hearing about
-your successes with it! Please report bugs to
-glasgow-haskell-bugs@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk and direct general queries to
-glasgow-haskell-request@<same>.
-
-Simon Peyton Jones
-(and his GRASPing colleagues)
-......................................................................
-
-References
-~~~~~~~~~~
-[1] Simon L Peyton Jones and John Launchbury, "Unboxed values as first
-class citizens", Functional Programming Languages and Computer
-Architecture, Boston, ed Hughes, LNCS 523, Springer Verlag, Sept 1991.
-
-[2] Simon L Peyton Jones, "Implementing lazy functional languages on
-stock hardware: the Spineless Tagless G-machine", Journal of
-Functional Programming (to appear). Also obtainable by anonymous FTP
-from ftp.dcs.glasgow.ac.uk:pub/glasgow-fp/stg.dvi.
-
-Distribution
-~~~~~~~~~~~~
-This release is available, in whole or in part, from the usual Haskell
-anonymous FTP sites, in the directory pub/haskell/glasgow:
-
- nebula.cs.yale.edu (128.36.13.1)
- ftp.dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (130.209.240.50)
- animal.cs.chalmers.se (129.16.225.66)
-
-(Beleaguered NIFTP users within the UK can get the same files by using
-a <FP>/haskell/glasgow prefix, instead of pub/haskell/glasgow.)
-
-These are the available files (for the ON DEMAND ones, please ask):
-
-ghc-0.06-src.tar.Z the basic source distribution; assumes you
- will compile it with Chalmers HBC, version
- 0.997.3 or later.
-
-ghc-0.06-proto-hi-files.tar.Z
- An "overlay" of .hi interface files, to be
- used when compiling with the *prototype*
- Glasgow Haskell compiler (version 0.411 or
- later).
-
-ghc-0.06-hc-files.tar.Z An "overlay" of .hc generated-C files; used
- either to save you the trouble of compiling
- the prelude, or because your only interest is
- porting the C to
-
-ghc-0.06-tests.tar.Z Some of our test files we have used in getting
- this beast going. We hope to grow them into a
- semi-respectable benchmark suite.
projects / ghc-hetmet.git / blobdiff