[Binary builds for x86-linux and sparc-solaris are now available. We're still working on the Windows version. -- J] The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 5.00 ============================================================ We are pleased to announce a new major release of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC), version 5.00. The source distribution is freely available via the World-Wide Web and through anon. FTP, under a BSD-style license. See below for download details. Pre-built packages for Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and Win32 are also available. Haskell is a standard lazy functional programming language; the current language version is Haskell 98, agreed in December 1998. GHC is a state-of-the-art programming suite for Haskell. Included is an optimising compiler generating good code for a variety of platforms, together with an interactive system for convenient, quick development. The distribution includes space and time profiling facilities, a large collection of libraries, and support for various language extensions, including concurrency, exceptions, and foreign language interfaces (C, C++, whatever). A wide variety of Haskell related resources (tutorials, libraries, specifications, documentation, compilers, interpreters, references, contact information, links to research groups) are available from the Haskell home page at http://www.haskell.org/ GHC's Web page lives at http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ What's new ============ 5.00 has been majorly revamped since the previous stable version, 4.08.2. This should be a stable release. Major changes since 4.08.2 are: - An interactive system, similar in style to Hugs. You can interactively load and unload modules, run expressions, ask the types of things. Module dependencies are tracked and chased automatically. Combinations of compiled and interpreted modules may be used. All the GHC libraries are available in interactive mode, as are most of the Glasgow extensions to Haskell 98. Compilation in interactive mode (to bytecode) is about three times faster than compiling to object code. - Batch compilation of multiple modules at once, with automatic dependency chasing. For large programs this can halve compilation times, and removes the need for Makefiles. - Enhanced package (library) management system. Packages may be installed and removed from an installation using the ghc-pkg tool. - Initial Unicode support - the Char type is now 31 bits. - Sparc native code generator, giving much faster compilation on sparcs. (Native code generation for x86s has been available for a while). - Improved heap profiling - you can restrict heap profiles by type, closure description, cost centre, and module. - Support for the latest Foreign Function Interface (FFI) proposals. Marcin Kowalczyk's hsc2hs tool is included. - Language extensions: parallel list comprehensions and functional dependencies. - The usual huge collection of bug fixes. Most reported bugs have been fixed. For full details see the release notes: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/5.00/set/release-5-00.html How to get it =============== The easy way is to go to the WWW page, which should be self-explanatory: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ We supply binary builds in .rpm/.deb form for all you Linux junkies out there, and in InstallShield form for Windows folks. Everybody else gets a .tar.gz which can be installed where you want. Once you have the distribution, please follow the pointers in the README file to find all of the documentation about this release. On-line GHC-related resources =============================== Relevant URLs on the World-Wide Web: GHC home page http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ Haskell home page http://www.haskell.org/ comp.lang.functional FAQ http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~gmh/faq.html System requirements ===================== To compile programs with GHC, you need a machine with 32+MB memory, GNU C and perl. This release is known to work on the following platforms: * i386-unknown-{linux,freebsd,mingw32} * sparc-sun-solaris2 Ports to the following platforms should be relatively easy (for a wunderhacker), but haven't been tested due to lack of time/hardware: * hppa1.1-hp-hpux{9,10} * i386-unknown-solaris2 * alpha-dec-osf{2,3} * mips-sgi-irix{5,6} * {rs6000,powerpc}-ibm-aix The builder's guide included in distribution gives a complete run-down of what ports work; an on-line version can be found at http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/5.00/building/building-guide.html Mailing lists =============== We run mailing lists for GHC users and bug reports; to subscribe, use the web interfaces at http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-bugs There are several other haskell and ghc-related mailing lists on www.haskell.org; for the full list, see http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ Please send bug reports about GHC to glasgow-haskell-bugs@haskell.org; GHC users hang out on glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org. Bleeding edge CVS users party on cvs-ghc@haskell.org.