On Wed, 2007-06-20 at 14:42 +0100, Simon Marlow wrote:
"The binaries needed by programs built by these tools...", you're referring to the C runtime DLLs? Why does that matter?
Note I said "with no dependencies" above. A Windows native port of GHC would require you to go to MS and download the assembler and linker separately - we couldn't automate that, there are click-through licenses and stuff.
So what? Felix requires: (a) C/C++ compiler (b) Python (c) Ocaml you have to download and install these tools on ANY platform, including Ubuntu Linux. gcc isn't installed on a basic system. True, with Debian, this can be automated, so you only have to click on the main package. I need THREE external tools. Is this a pain? YES! [On Windows .. it's a breeze on Ubuntu .. :] Is it too much effort to ask, for someone to use a major advanced programming language like Haskell? Don't forget .. Mingw has to be installed too .. and in fact that is much harder. I tried to install MSYS and gave up.
MS pays for Ian Lynagh, who works full time on GHC as a contractor. MS puts roughly as much money into GHC as it does into F#, FWIW.
I'm happy to hear that! Now let me turn the argument around. Mingw is a minor bit player. The MS toolchain is the main toolchain to support. C++ can't run on Mingw for example (MS and gcc C++ are incompatible). GHC needs to target *professional windows programmers*. They're going to have VS installed already. Haskell is far too important a language (IMHO) not to have an entry in the commercial programming arena. Commercial programming is in a bad way! It NEEDS stuff like Haskell available. BTW: I don't really like Windows .. but I want to see Haskell succeed. Trying to do Haskell on Windows without MSVC++ toolchain is like trying to work on Linux without binutils... :) -- John Skaller <skaller at users dot sf dot net> Felix, successor to C++: http://felix.sf.net