Greetings, GHC users and developers. We're hoping to ship GHC 5.02 in about three weeks. The plan is as follows: * Fri 17 Aug (end of this week): feature freeze. * Monday 20 Aug - Friday 31 Aug: stabilise, bug fix. * Fri 31 Aug: release. GHC USERS: Soon after the feature freeze, maybe around 20 Aug, we plan to put out a release candidate. If you reported bug(s) in the past couple of months and are hoping that they are fixed in 5.02, please download and try the release candidate. We're making this candidate available early in the stabilisation period so as to give us a chance to fix issues before the final release. Do take this opportunity to work with us to improve the quality of the 5.02 release. GHC DEVELOPERS: please try and check in any final changes before Friday (or at least advise us of your intentions). Given that we're trying to stabilise GHC, the fewer changes you check in, the better. Below is a list of changes in 5.02 relative to 5.00.X. As ever, we welcome your feedback. J (the 5.02 release coordinator) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - 5.02 will be released for x86-Linux, Sparc-Solaris and Win32. Compared to the 5.00.X series, 5.02 will contain the following user-visible major changes: * Many bug fixes and stabilisations in the interactive system. Includes a clone of the :i (info) command. * New compacting garbage collector, which reduces the total amount of memory needed to run progs at the expense of being a bit slower. The old GC is still there and still used by default. * Partial FFI implementation for the interpreter: foreign import {static, dynamic}. No foreign export or label. * Win32: simple one-click-install package. No requirement for Cygwin any longer, and you don't need to install any other supporting stuff either. Internal changes: * New demand analyser, hopefully generating better code. * Majorly rewritten I/O library. * Much heroic hacking by Ken Shan to revive the Alpha port. Probably lots of other stuff I've forgotten.