- Glasgow-haskell-users

The future of the SPARC NCG backend
by Ben Gamari 27 Jun '19

27 Jun '19

Hello everyone, If you use (or think you might use in the future) GHC's SPARC NCG backend please do leave a note on #16882 [1]. My impression is that it has no users and no plausible means of testing. Consequently I am suggesting that we remove it in GHC 8.12. Cheers, - Ben [1] https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/issues/16882

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[ANNOUNCE] GHC 8.8.1-alpha2 is now available
by Ben Gamari 22 Jun '19

22 Jun '19

Hello everyone, The GHC team is pleased to announce the second and likely last alpha release of GHC 8.8.1. The source distribution, binary distributions, and documentation are available at https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/8.8.1-alpha2 A draft of the release notes is also available [1]. This release is the culmination of over 3000 commits by over one hundred contributors and has several new features and numerous bug fixes relative to GHC 8.6: * Profiling now works correctly on 64-bit Windows (although still may be problematic on 32-bit Windows due to platform limitations; see #15934) * A new code layout algorithm for amd64's native code generator * The introduction of a late lambda-lifting pass which may reduce allocations significantly for some programs. * Further work on Trees That Grow, enabling improved code re-use of the Haskell AST in tooling * More locations where users can write `forall` (GHC Proposal #0007) * Further work on the Hadrian build system This release brings a number of fixes since alpha 1: * A number of linker fixes (#16779, #16784) * The process, binary, Cabal, time, terminfo libraries have all been bumped to their final release versions * A regression rendering TemplateHaskell unusable in cross-compiled configurations has been fixed (#16331) * A regression causing compiler panics on compilation of some programs has been fixed (#16449) * -Wmissing-home-modules now handles hs-boot files correctly (#16551) * A regression causing some programs to fail at runtime has been fixed (#16066) Due to on-going work on our release and testing infrastructure this cycle is proceeding at a pace significantly slower than expected. However, we anticipate that this investment will allow us to release a more reliable, easier-to-install compiler on the planned six-month release cadence in the future. As always, if anything looks amiss do let us know. Happy compiling! Cheers, - Ben [1] https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/8.8.1-alpha2/docs/html/users_guide/8.8.1-…

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Re: [ANNOUNCE] GHC 8.8.1-alpha2 is now available
by Ben Gamari 17 Jun '19

17 Jun '19

That is true and this will be fixed for the release candidate. However Debian 8 is now no longer Debian's current stable release so I wasn't prioritizing this issue. If the lack of a Debian 8 distribution is preventing anyone from testing please let me know. Cheers, - Ben On June 17, 2019 6:24:16 AM EDT, Matthew Pickering <matthewtpickering(a)gmail.com> wrote: >There seems to be no debian8 bindist which is different from every >release at least back to ghc-8.0.1. > >On Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 8:36 PM Ben Gamari <ben(a)well-typed.com> wrote: >> >> Hello everyone, >> >> The GHC team is pleased to announce the second and likely last alpha >> release of GHC 8.8.1. The source distribution, binary distributions, >and >> documentation are available at >> >> https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/8.8.1-alpha2 >> >> A draft of the release notes is also available [1]. >> >> This release is the culmination of over 3000 commits by over one >hundred >> contributors and has several new features and numerous bug fixes >> relative to GHC 8.6: >> >> * Profiling now works correctly on 64-bit Windows (although still >may >> be problematic on 32-bit Windows due to platform limitations; see >> #15934) >> >> * A new code layout algorithm for amd64's native code generator >> >> * The introduction of a late lambda-lifting pass which may reduce >> allocations significantly for some programs. >> >> * Further work on Trees That Grow, enabling improved code re-use of >the >> Haskell AST in tooling >> >> * More locations where users can write `forall` (GHC Proposal #0007) >> >> * Further work on the Hadrian build system >> >> This release brings a number of fixes since alpha 1: >> >> * A number of linker fixes (#16779, #16784) >> >> * The process, binary, Cabal, time, terminfo libraries have all been >> bumped to their final release versions >> >> * A regression rendering TemplateHaskell unusable in cross-compiled >> configurations has been fixed (#16331) >> >> * A regression causing compiler panics on compilation of some >programs >> has been fixed (#16449) >> >> * -Wmissing-home-modules now handles hs-boot files correctly >(#16551) >> >> * A regression causing some programs to fail at runtime has been >fixed >> (#16066) >> >> Due to on-going work on our release and testing infrastructure this >> cycle is proceeding at a pace significantly slower than expected. >> However, we anticipate that this investment will allow us to release >a >> more reliable, easier-to-install compiler on the planned six-month >> release cadence in the future. >> >> As always, if anything looks amiss do let us know. >> >> Happy compiling! >> >> Cheers, >> >> - Ben >> >> [1] >https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/8.8.1-alpha2/docs/html/users_guide/8.8.1-… >> _______________________________________________ >> ghc-devs mailing list >> ghc-devs(a)haskell.org >> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

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Typed hole improvements
by David Feuer 07 Jun '19

07 Jun '19

I've been playing around with 8.6.3, and I've really been appreciating the improvements in typed hole messages. Both the information about constraints and the suggestions for filling the holes have proven valuable in heavily typish programming. Thanks! One thing that's still not where I'd like it to be is the equality constraint display. I recognize this is a Hard Problem. But digging through something like x ~ C y z x ~ C y1 z2 D p b ~ q z y1 to get b ~ y gets tiresome. Is there room for improvement here? If not, are there any programs around using the GHC API to offer an interactive system for such calculations? It'd be quite helpful when seeing such constraints to be able to express special interest in a particular type variable, for example.

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[ANNOUNCE] GHC 8.6.5 is now available
by Ben Gamari 03 May '19

03 May '19

Hello everyone, The GHC team is proud to announce the release of GHC 8.6.5. The source distribution, binary distributions, and documentation are available at https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/8.6.5 Release notes are also available [1]. This release fixes a handful of issues with 8.6.4: - Binary distributions once again ship with Haddock documentation including syntax highlighted source of core libraries (#16445) - A build system issue where use of GCC with `-flto` broke `configure` was fixed (#16440) - An bug affecting Windows platforms wherein XMM register values could be mangled when entering STG has been fixed (#16514) - Several Windows packaging issues resulting from the recent CI rework. (#16408, #16398, #16516) Do note that due to linking issues (see #15934) profiling will be rather unreliable on Windows. This will be fixed in 8.8.1. As always, if anything looks amiss do let us know. Happy compiling! Cheers, - Ben [1] http://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/8.6.5/docs/html/users_guide/8.6.5-notes.h…

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[ANNOUNCE] GHC 8.8.1-alpha1 is now available
by Ben Gamari 26 Apr '19

26 Apr '19

Hello everyone, The GHC team is pleased to announce the first alpha release of GHC 8.8.1. The source distribution, binary distributions, and documentation are available at https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/8.8.1-alpha1 A draft of the release notes is also available [1]. This release is the culmination of over 3000 commits by over one hundred contributors and has several new features and numerous bug fixes relative to GHC 8.6: * Profiling now works correctly on 64-bit Windows (although still may be problematic on 32-bit Windows due to platform limitations; see #15934) * A new code layout algorithm for amd64's native code generator * The introduction of a late lambda-lifting pass which may reduce allocations significantly for some programs. * Further work on Trees That Grow, enabling improved code re-use of the Haskell AST in tooling * More locations where users can write `forall` (GHC Proposal #0007) * Further work on the Hadrian build system This release starts the pre-release cycle for GHC 8.8. This cycle is starting quite a bit later than expected due recent work on GHC's CI and release infrastructure. See the GHC Blog [2] for more on this. As always, if anything looks amiss do let us know. Happy compiling! Cheers, - Ben [1] https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/8.8.1-alpha1/docs/html/users_guide/8.8.1-… [2] https://www.haskell.org/ghc/blog/20190405-ghc-8.8-status.html

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[ANNOUNCE] GHC 8.6.5-rc1 is now available
by Ben Gamari 08 Apr '19

08 Apr '19

Hello everyone, The GHC team is proud to announce the first release candidate of 8.6.5. The source distribution, binary distributions, and documentation are available at https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/8.6.5-rc1 This release fixes a handful of issues with 8.6.4: - Binary distributions once again ship with Haddock documentation including syntax highlighted source of core libraries (#16445) - A build system issue where use of GCC with `-flto` broke `configure` was fixed (#16440) - An bug affecting Windows platforms wherein XMM register values could be mangled when entering STG has been fixed (#16514) - Several Windows packaging issues resulting from the recent CI rework. (#16408, #16398, #16516) Since this is a relatively small bugfix release we are bypassing the alpha releases and moving right to the release candidate stage. If all goes well the final release will be cut next week. As always, if anything looks amiss do let us know. Happy testing! Cheers, - Ben

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GHC HEAD documentation once again available
by Ben Gamari 31 Mar '19

31 Mar '19

TL;DR. A snapshot of GHC's documentation from the master branch can always be found at [2]. Hi everyone, Quite a while ago I made it a habit of periodically pushing documentation snapshots from GHC's master branch to downloads.haskell.org [1]. Unfortunately, despite some attempts at automating this process, this frequently grew out-of-date. I am happy to report that documentation snapshots are now generated as a product of GHC's CI process and made available here [2]. The old downloads.haskell.org URL redirects to [2] and consequently should now always be up-to-date. Let me know if you notice anything amiss. Cheers, - Ben [1] https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/master/ [2] https://ghc.gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/doc/

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Re: Equality constraints (~): type-theory behind them
by Anthony Clayden 26 Mar '19

26 Mar '19

> On Mon, Dec 10, 2018 at 8:36:42 AM Tom Schrijvers wrote: > Maybe our Haskell'17 paper about Elaboration on Functional Dependencies sheds some more light on your problem: Thanks Tom, I've also been working through the 2011 expanded version of 'System F with Type Equality Coercions' that Adam suggested. I'm finding your 2017 paper's proposals not up to the job, because it doesn't consider FunDeps for Overlapping Instances; and unnecessary because the examples it's addressing can be fixed purely using FunDeps, with their semantics per the 2006 'via CHRs' paper. The chief problems with using FunDeps in GHC code is GHC doesn't follow that semantics; neither does it follow any other well-principled/documented semantics.You can get it to accept a bunch of instances then find that taken together they're not consistent and confluent, in the sense of the 'via CHRs' paper. Specifically, re the 2017's paper Challenge 1: Enforcing (essentially Trac #10675). That set of instances in the example is not valid by the 'via CHRs' rules, and should be rejected. Hugs indeed rejects that code. GHC accepts it and #10675 shows what sort of incoherence can result. I'm not seeing we need to translate to Type Families/System FC to explain it. Re Challenge 2: Elaborating (which is Trac #9627 that gives the main example for the paper). We can fix that code with an extra `~` constraint: class C a b | a -> b instance C Int Bool f :: (C Int b, b ~ Bool) => b -> Bool f x = x (Or in Hugs with a `TypeCast` instead of the `~`.) Is that extra constraint onerous? The signature already has `Bool` hard-coded as the return type, so I don't see it's any more onerous. Or put that signature as f :: (C Int b) => b -> b Which also has the effect `b` must be `Bool`. I'd far rather see GHC's implementation of FunDeps made more coherent (and learning from Hugs) than squeezing it into the straitjacket of System FC and thereby lose expressivity. AntC

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props for Hugs over System FC
by Anthony Clayden 25 Mar '19

25 Mar '19

heh heh. I've got to record this for posterity. I've never known an example before. Some code that compiles in Hugs and works fine; but GHC (8.6.4) can't typecheck so rejects. It's an example in the 2011 'System F with Type Equality Coercions', section 2.3 discussing FunDeps; and used to justify the extra power of type inference in Type Families as opposed to FunDeps. Full details discussed here: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/issues/16430#note_189393 class F a b | a -> b instance F Int Bool class D a where { op :: F a b => a -> b } instance D Int where { op _ = True } True that doesn't compile as given. Hugs says: 'Inferred type is not general enough'. GHC says 'Couldn't match expected type `b' with actual type `Bool''/ '`b' is a rigid type variable'. (So essentially the same failure of typechecking.) With a little help for the type inference, this compiles in Hugs. class C a b | a -> b instance C Int Bool f :: (C Int b, TypeCast b Bool) => b -> Bool f x = typeCast x With `TypeCast` defined as for HList. But GHC still rejects it; and rejects a version with a `(~)` constraint instead of the `TypeCast`. AntC

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