Why is executable size a barrier? 1.64 megabytes (that's the size of the executable I built with GHC most recently) of disk space costs less than half a cent. The total cost of the storage will be higher (backup, installing the drive, etc.) but I don't think it will be important. Are there other reasons that size matters? mike

I just recently starting to use the ghc compiler and am astonished by the size of the executables. Out of interest, why are they so large? Is there any work in progress to make the resulting executable/object somewhat more "normal" in size?

I read in the Haskell mailing list archives discussions relating to reducing the barriers to broader acceptance of functional programming by the general programming community (in particular Haskell) - I would regard this as one of these barriers.