Good. I hope Isaac will do a write up of his own. Re the "improved package mechanism", perhaps add a URL? http://www.haskell.org/~simonmar/packages.html Simon | -----Original Message----- | From: libraries-bounces@haskell.org [mailto:libraries-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Malcolm | Wallace | Sent: 28 October 2003 11:12 | To: libraries@haskell.org | Subject: Re: Special Invitation :-) HC&A Report (November 2003) (fwd) | | "C.Reinke" writes: | | > That includes individual libraries, developments in the hierarchical | > libraries (Simon M., the usual contact for this, is away;), as well | > as the discussions (Haskell WS & after) about library | > infrastructure, and your conclusions and plans. In short, anything | > interesting that happened on this list but may not have reached the | > general Haskeller yet. | | Since Simon is away, I thought I would attempt to write a general | introduction to the meta-activity in the libraries area (see below). | However, rather than usurp his title by stealth, I am posting my | summary to the libraries list so that anyone can edit/improve it. | Please feel free to write a better summary and submit it to Claus! | | (And individuals who have been proposing infrastructural things | might want to add a few more paragraphs of detail on their own | contributions.) | | Regards, | Malcolm | | | ---- | HC&A Report - Hierarchical libraries | | Apart from actually writing libraries that do stuff, recent | meta-activity in the libraries community has concentrated on plans for | making libraries easier to install, to distribute, to maintain, and | therefore also easier to write and contribute to Haskellers at large. | | Isaac Jones has been leading the effort in | bringing together a proposal for a common distribution/installation | mechanism. The aim is for a general framework that can be re-used | by anyone wanting to contribute a library, so that they can be sure | it will work uniformly across all the compilers/interpreters without | too much effort. It covers such areas as automated configure/build, | library registration, dependencies on other library packages, and | automatic re-installation when a compiler version is updated. | | Meanwhile, the two Simons at GHC-HQ have been proposing an improved | 'package' mechanism for the compilers/interpreters themselves. | This proposal aims to create a more flexible 'backend' for library | usage, such that libraries can be re-located within the hierarchy, | and different versions of a library can co-exist together. | | In other recent news, the common 'base' package of libraries has | recently been subdivided to separate off non-core functionality, making | the core more stable, whilst enabling independent evolution of the | other libraries. The split-off packages include parsec, QuickCheck, | and the monad transformers. Other packages resident in the haskell.org | CVS tree include OpenGL, GLUT, HaXml, Japi (Java API), ObjectIO, | Win32, X11, HGL (Haskell Graphics Library), haskell-src, network, | readline, and unix. | ---- | _______________________________________________ | Libraries mailing list | Libraries@haskell.org | http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/libraries