- Glasgow-haskell-users

[ANNOUNCE] GHC 9.6.1-alpha1 is now available
by Ben Gamari 16 Jan '23

16 Jan '23

The GHC team is very pleased to announce the availability of GHC 9.6.1-alpha1. As usual, binaries and source distributions are available at downloads.haskell.org: https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/9.6.1-alpha1/ This is the first alpha release in the 9.6 series which will bring a number of exciting features: * A new Javascript code generation backend * A new WebAssembly code generation backend, * Significant latency improvements in the non-moving garbage collector * Support for loading of multiple components in GHCi * Efficient support for delimited continuations * Improvements in error messages * Numerous improvements in compiler-residency Note that both the Javascript and WebAssembly backends are still in a state of infancy and are present in this release as a technology preview; we hope that they will mature considerably before the final 9.6.1 release. Please give this release a try and open a [ticket] if you see anything amiss. Cheers, - Ben [ticket]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/issues/

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Will there be a GHC 9.2.6?
by Clinton Mead 28 Dec '22

28 Dec '22

Hi All I just noticed Haskell Language Server (HLS) 1.9 has been released, which supports GHC 9.2.5. My organisation is currently using GHC 9.2.2 and I don't see any immediate need to jump to GHC 9.4, it would be good to settle on the latest most stable version of the GHC 9.2 series as it includes all the features we need at the moment. Also I understand that HLS tends to have long term(ish) support for the latest GHC in a release series. I'd rather not do this upgrade twice so I was just wondering whether it has been decided or not whether there will be a 9.2.6 release (if this is still unknown that's okay). I did notice this page: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/milestones/385 but was unsure whether this page was autogenerated or a deliberate indication that there will be a GHC 9.2.6 at some point. (I understand one can do source builds of HLS for non-supported versions but I'd prefer to just allow developers to use an off the shelf HLS plugin for their favoured editor along with a HLS pin in Nix). Thanks, Clinton

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[ANNOUNCE] GHC 9.4.4 is now available
by Ben Gamari 25 Dec '22

25 Dec '22

The GHC developers are happy to announce the availability of GHC 9.4.4. Binary distributions, source distributions, and documentation are available at downloads.haskell.org [1]. This release is primarily a bugfix release. Bugs fixed include: * An issue where the wrong labels were used in the eventlog for events emitted when using info table profiling which was broken in 9.4.3 (#22452) * Fix a long standing bug where invalid eventlogs would be produced with long command-lines (#20221) * Fix a regression in eta-expansion which resulted in serious performance regressions in 9.4.3 (#22424) * Fix the `-fdefer-diagnostics` flag (#22391) * Fixes to several subtle compiler panics (#22491, #22416, #22549, #22475, #22039) * Add necessary write barriers to `IORef` operations, avoiding potential soundness issues on architectures with weakly-ordered memory models (#22468) Note that, as GHC 9.4 is the first release series where the release artifacts are all generated by our new Hadrian build system, it is possible that there will be packaging issues. If you enounter trouble while using a binary distribution, please open a [ticket]. Likewise, if you are a downstream packager, do consider migrating to [Hadrian] to run your build; the Hadrian build system can be built using `cabal-install`, `stack`, or the in-tree [bootstrap script]. See the accompanying [blog post] for details on migrating packaging to Hadrian. We would also like to emphasize that GHC 9.4 must be used in conjunction with Cabal-3.8 or later. This is particularly important for Windows users due to changes in GHC's Windows toolchain. We would like to thank Microsoft Azure, GitHub, IOG, the Zw3rk stake pool, Well-Typed, Tweag I/O, Serokell, Equinix, SimSpace, Haskell Foundation, and other anonymous contributors whose on-going financial and in-kind support has facilitated GHC maintenance and release management over the years. Finally, this release would not have been possible without the hundreds of open-source contributors whose work comprise this release. As always, do give this release a try and open a [ticket] if you see anything amiss. Happy Haskelling, - Ben [1]: https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/9.4.4 [ticket]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/issues/new [bootstrap script]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/blob/e2520df3fffa0cf22fb19c5fb872832d1… [Hadrian]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/blob/e2520df3fffa0cf22fb19c5fb872832d1… [blog post]: https://www.haskell.org/ghc/blog/20220805-make-to-hadrian.html

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[ANNOUNCE] GHC 9.4.3 is now available
by Ben Gamari 09 Nov '22

09 Nov '22

The GHC developers are happy to announce the availability of GHC 9.4.3. Binary distributions, source distributions, and documentation are available at downloads.haskell.org: https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/9.4.3 This release is primarily a bugfix release addressing a few issues found in 9.4.2. These include: * An issue where recursively calls could be speculatively evaluated, resulting in non-termination (#20836) * A code generation issue in the AArch64 native code generator backend resulting in incorrect runtime results in some circumstances (#22282) * A crash on Darwin when running executables compiled with IPE support (#22080) * A long-standing interface-file determinism issue where full paths would leak into the interface file (#22162) * A bug in the `process` library where file handles specified as `NoStream` would still be usable in the child (process#251) Note that, as GHC 9.4 is the first release series where the release artifacts are all generated by our new Hadrian build system, it is possible that there will be packaging issues. If you enounter trouble while using a binary distribution, please open a [ticket]. Likewise, if you are a downstream packager, do consider migrating to [Hadrian] to run your build; the Hadrian build system can be built using `cabal-install`, `stack`, or the in-tree [bootstrap script]. See the accompanying [blog post] for details on migrating packaging to Hadrian. We would also like to emphasize that GHC 9.4 must be used in conjunction with Cabal-3.8 or later. This is particularly important for Windows users due to changes in GHC's Windows toolchain. We would like to thank Microsoft Azure, GitHub, IOG, the Zw3rk stake pool, Well-Typed, Tweag I/O, Serokell, Equinix, SimSpace, Haskell Foundation, and other anonymous contributors whose on-going financial and in-kind support has facilitated GHC maintenance and release management over the years. Finally, this release would not have been possible without the hundreds of open-source contributors whose work comprise this release. As always, do give this release a try and open a ticket if you see anything amiss. Happy Haskelling, - Ben [ticket]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/issues/new [bootstrap script]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/blob/e2520df3fffa0cf22fb19c5fb872832d1… [Hadrian]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/blob/e2520df3fffa0cf22fb19c5fb872832d1… [blog post]: https://www.haskell.org/ghc/blog/20220805-make-to-hadrian.html

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GitLab maintenance today
by Ben Gamari 07 Nov '22

07 Nov '22

Hi all, Today we will be doing some maintenance on gitlab.haskell.org to address #22418. I can't yet say precisely when the outage will begin but I do expect there to be one. I will try to provide at least 30 minutes notice. Cheers, - Ben

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[Haskell] [ANNOUNCE] GHC 9.2.5 released
by Zubin Duggal 07 Nov '22

07 Nov '22

The GHC developers are very happy to at announce the availability of GHC 9.2.5. Binary distributions, source distributions, and documentation are available at [`downloads.haskell.org`](https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/9.2.5). Download Page: https://www.haskell.org/ghc/download_ghc_9_2_5.html Blog Post: https://www.haskell.org/ghc/blog/20221107-ghc-9.2.5-released.html This release is primarily a bugfix release addressing a few issues found in 9.2.4. These include: * Code generation issues in the AArch64 native code generator backend resulting in incorrect runtime results in some circumstances (#22282, #21964) * Fixes for a number of issues with the simplifier leading to core lint errors and suboptimal performance (#21694, #21755, #22114) * A long-standing interface-file determinism issue where full paths would leak into the interface file (#22162) * A runtime system bug where creating empty mutable arrays resulted in a crash (#21962) - ... and a few more. See the [release notes] for a full accounting. As some of the fixed issues do affect correctness users are encouraged to upgrade promptly. We would like to thank Microsoft Azure, GitHub, IOG, the Zw3rk stake pool, Well-Typed, Tweag I/O, Serokell, Equinix, SimSpace, Haskell Foundation, and other anonymous contributors whose on-going financial and in-kind support has facilitated GHC maintenance and release management over the years. Finally, this release would not have been possible without the hundreds of open-source contributors whose work comprise this release. As always, do give this release a try and open a [ticket][] if you see anything amiss. Happy compiling, - Zubin [ticket]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/issues/new [release notes]: https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/9.2.5/docs/html/users_guide/9.2.5-notes.…

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[ANNOUNCE] GHC 9.4.2 is now available
by Ben Gamari 30 Aug '22

30 Aug '22

The GHC developers are happy to announce the availability of GHC 9.4.2. Binary distributions, source distributions, and documentation are available at downloads.haskell.org: https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/9.4.2 This release is primarily a bugfix release addressing a few packaging issues found in 9.4.1. See the [release notes] for a full accounting. Note that, as GHC 9.4 is the first release series where the release artifacts are all generated by our new Hadrian build system, it is possible that there will be packaging issues. If you enounter trouble while using a binary distribution, please open a [ticket]. Likewise, if you are a downstream packager, do consider migrating to [Hadrian] to run your build; the Hadrian build system can be built using `cabal-install`, `stack`, or the in-tree [bootstrap script]. See the accompanying [blog post] for details on migrating packaging to Hadrian. We would also like to emphasize that GHC 9.4 must be used in conjunction with Cabal-3.8 or later. This is particularly important for Windows users due to changes in GHC's Windows toolchain. We would like to thank Microsoft Azure, GitHub, IOG, the Zw3rk stake pool, Well-Typed, Tweag I/O, Serokell, Equinix, SimSpace, Haskell Foundation, and other anonymous contributors whose on-going financial and in-kind support has facilitated GHC maintenance and release management over the years. Finally, this release would not have been possible without the hundreds of open-source contributors whose work comprise this release. As always, do give this release a try and open a [ticket] if you see anything amiss. Happy Haskelling, - Ben [ticket]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/issues/new [bootstrap script]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/blob/e2520df3fffa0cf22fb19c5fb872832d1… [Hadrian]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/blob/e2520df3fffa0cf22fb19c5fb872832d1… [release notes]: https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/9.4.2/docs/users_guide/9.4.2-notes.html [blog post]: https://www.haskell.org/ghc/blog/20220805-make-to-hadrian.html

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GHC Proposals session at Haskell Symposium at ICFP
by Joachim Breitner 30 Aug '22

30 Aug '22

Dear friends of GHC, this year’s Haskell Symposium will host a special “GHC Proposals session” where current, future and past GHC Proposals can be presented and discussed: https://icfp22.sigplan.org/home/haskellsymp-2022#GHC-Proposals-Session I invite all GHC Proposal authors (or otherwise interested party) who are in Ljubljana to present your ideas and plans; just e-mail me if you want a slot. I also invite everyone else – users, developers, educators – to join the session for the discussions of these proposals. Your chance to get your voice heard, and not just your writing on GitHub! Cheers, Joachim -- Joachim Breitner mail(a)joachim-breitner.de http://www.joachim-breitner.de/

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[Haskell] [ANNOUNCE] GHC 9.2.4 released
by Zubin Duggal 21 Aug '22

21 Aug '22

The GHC developers are very happy to at announce the availability of GHC 9.2.4. Binary distributions, source distributions, and documentation are available at [`downloads.haskell.org`](https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/9.2.4). Download Page: https://www.haskell.org/ghc/download_ghc_9_2_4.html Blog Post: https://www.haskell.org/ghc/blog/20220728-ghc-9.2.4-released.html This release will include: - The new `DeepSubsumption` language extension which reverses the effects of the [Simplified Subsumption Proposal] introduced in GHC 9.0. This is an attempt to make GHC 9.2.4 more backwards compatible with GHC 8.10 and eases migration for users who depended on this feature. This extension is enabled by default with the `Haskell2010` and `Haskell98` languages but disabled with the `GHC2021` language originally introduced in GHC 9.2.1. See the [Deep Subsumption Proposal] for more details. - Fixes for segfaults that may arise due to a bug in the implementation of the `keepAlive#` primop. This may regress performance for certain programs which use this primop or functions which use the primop, such as `withForeignPtr`. These regressions are mostly small, but can be larger in certain edge cases. Judicious use of `unsafeWithForeignPtr` when its argument is known not to statically diverge can mitigate these in many cases. It is our judgment that the critical correctness issues justify the regression in performance and that it is important to get a release out with the fix while we work on a better approach which will improve performance for future releases (#21708). We have a [wiki page](https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/wikis/proposal/with-combinator) that tracks possible solutions to this problem, and Ben wrote a [blog post](https://www.haskell.org/ghc/blog/20210607-the-keepAlive-story.html) detailing the introduction of the `keepAlive#` primop and its history. - Fixes for a number of miscompilations on AArch64 and other platforms (#21624, #21773, #20735, #21685). - Fixes for segfaults due to bugs in the RTS and GC (#21708, #21880, #21885). - Fixing the behaviour of Ctrl-C with GHCi on Windows (#21889). - ... and much more. See the [release notes] for a full accounting. As some of the fixed issues do affect correctness users are encouraged to upgrade promptly. We would like to thank Microsoft Azure, GitHub, IOG, the Zw3rk stake pool, Tweag I/O, Serokell, Equinix, SimSpace, Haskell Foundation, and other anonymous contributors whose on-going financial and in-kind support has facilitated GHC maintenance and release management over the years. Finally, this release would not have been possible without the hundreds of open-source contributors whose work comprise this release. As always, do give this release a try and open a [ticket] if you see anything amiss. Happy compiling, - Zubin [ticket]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/issues/new [release notes]: https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/9.2.4/docs/users_guide/9.2.4-notes.html [Simplified Subsumption Proposal]: https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/proposals/0287-s… [Deep Subsumption Proposal]: https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/proposals/0511-d…

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[ANNOUNCE] GHC 9.4.1 is now available
by Ben Gamari 21 Aug '22

21 Aug '22

The GHC developers are very pleased to announce the availability of GHC 9.4.1. Binary distributions, source distributions, and documentation are available at downloads.haskell.org: https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/9.4.1 This release includes: - A new profiling mode, `-fprof-late`, which adds automatic cost-center annotations to all top-level functions *after* Core optimisation has run. This provides informative profiles while interfering significantly less with GHC's aggressive optimisations, making it easier to understand the performance of programs which depend upon simplification.. - A variety of plugin improvements including the introduction of a new plugin type, *defaulting plugins*, and the ability for typechecking plugins to rewrite type-families. - An improved constructed product result analysis, allowing unboxing of nested structures, and a new boxity analysis, leading to less reboxing. - Introduction of a tag-check elision optimisation, bringing significant performance improvements in strict programs. - Generalisation of a variety of primitive types to be levity polymorphic. Consequently, the `ArrayArray#` type can at long last be retired, replaced by standard `Array#`. - Introduction of the `\cases` syntax from [GHC proposal 0302]. - A complete overhaul of GHC's Windows support. This includes a migration to a fully Clang-based C toolchain, a deep refactoring of the linker, and many fixes in WinIO. - Support for multiple home packages, significantly improving support in IDEs and other tools for multi-package projects. - A refactoring of GHC's error message infrastructure, allowing GHC to provide diagnostic information to downstream consumers as structured data, greatly easing IDE support. - Significant compile-time improvements to runtime and memory consumption. - On overhaul of our packaging infrastructure, allowing full traceability of release artifacts and more reliable binary distributions. - Reintroduction of deep subsumption (which was previously dropped with the *simplified subsumption* change) as a language extension. - ... and much more. See the [release notes] for a full accounting. Note that, as 9.4.1 is the first release for which the released artifacts will all be generated by our Hadrian build system, it is possible that there will be packaging issues. If you enounter trouble while using a binary distribution, please open a [ticket]. Likewise, if you are a downstream packager, do consider migrating to [Hadrian] to run your build; the Hadrian build system can be built using `cabal-install`, `stack`, or the in-tree [bootstrap script]. See the accompanying [blog post] for details on migrating packaging to Hadrian. We would like to thank Microsoft Azure, GitHub, IOG, the Zw3rk stake pool, Well-Typed, Tweag I/O, Serokell, Equinix, SimSpace, Haskell Foundation, and other anonymous contributors whose on-going financial and in-kind support has facilitated GHC maintenance and release management over the years. Finally, this release would not have been possible without the hundreds of open-source contributors whose work comprise this release. As always, do give this release a try and open a [ticket] if you see anything amiss. Happy testing, - Ben [GHC proposal 0302]: https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/proposals/0302-c… [ticket]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/issues/new [bootstrap script]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/blob/e2520df3fffa0cf22fb19c5fb872832d1… [Hadrian]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/blob/e2520df3fffa0cf22fb19c5fb872832d1… [release notes]: https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/9.4.1/docs/users_guide/9.4.1-notes.html [blog post]: https://www.haskell.org/ghc/blog/20220805-make-to-hadrian.html

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