On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 4:34 PM, Gabriel Dos Reis < gdr@integrable-solutions.net> wrote:
I have some experience with GCC releases -- having served as a GCC Release Manager for several years. In fact, the release scheme we currently have has gone through several iterations -- usually after many "existential" crisis. Yes, we don't break GCC ABI lightly, mostly because GCC isn't a research compiler and most "research works" are done on forgotten branches that nobody cares about anymore. Implementing new standards (e.g. moving from C++03 to C++11 that has several mandated API and ABI breakage) is a royal pain that isn't worth replicating in GHC -- at least if you want GHC to remain a research compiler.
Concerning your question about release number, I would venture that there is a certain "marketing" aspect to it. I can tell you that we, the GCC community, are very poor at that -- otherwise, we would have been at version 26 or something :-)
Thanks for sharing! My perspective is of course as a user. I don't think I've ever run into a case where the compiler broken a previous work e.g. C++ program. On the other hand I have to make a release of most of the libraries I maintain with every GHC release (to bump cabal version constraints to accept the new base version, if nothing else). -- Johan