Hello Simon, Wednesday, August 23, 2006, 2:26:56 PM, you wrote:
> Just replacing GHC without upgrading libraries (or RTS) should be possible imho this is not very useful. typically, bug fixes are spread over compiler, rts and libraries, so upgrading only compiler seems very strange idea and upgrading to major new version (6.4.2->6.6) will be impossible anyway > If the base package is upgraded without also replacing the other libraries... > this is where it gets really tricky. Binary dependencies between library code > tend to be very deep due to cross-module inlining and optimisations, so right > now the chances of upgrading base without replacing everything else are almost > zero. To be able to do this I believe we have to track very carefully the > API/ABI that a package is exposing, so that we can be sure that a replacement > is > truly compatible. This may mean restricting optimisations across package > boundaries. i think that better way is to supply non-core libs in source form and just recompile them in this case. so, eventually windows installation should become equivalent of installing core ghc and then downloading/compiling all the bundled libs. the benefit of packaging these libs together with core ghc should be just that some "standard library" exists and automatically downloaded with any windows ghc installation. in all other ways these libs should be no different from "non-standard" ones for package-based unixes i propose making packages for all libs that was considered "standard" as requirement to consider GHC port to this OS as complete so, GHC developers will not be bothered (at least, in theory :D) with libraries distribution/support/upgrading problems, but nevertheless we will retain some "standard libraries" set, which is supposed to be supported by many OS/compiler combinations as a consequence from this idea, non-core libs should be installed in source form and then compiled by usual cabal procedure. on the installation of new ghc version existing libs should be recompiled for new ghc version. or alternatively, ghc should compile each library when it first time used (with this ghc installation), like jhc does ability to make at least minor ghc upgrades without recompiling libraries installed (major upgrades are definitely impossible because of .hi format changes) seems great but means that we can't inline even 'head' definition outside of 'base' lib :) -- Best regards, Bulat mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Glasgow-haskell-users mailing list Glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users
