Amongst other projects, I'm working on aspects of a GHC based Haskell
compiler for .NET.  We're currently at a fairly early stage, but if by
"system dependent" you mean "Windows dependent", then I can happily say that
it looks like a basic, functioning Haskell system should not need to access
any .NET libraries that are by their nature Windows specific.  Some .NET
libraries do provide access to Windows specifics, of course, but not all.

As for the specs - they aren't always 100% perfect, but given this product
is pre-beta I reckon they're in pretty good shape by industrial standards.
Many aspects are being submitted to ECMA, and I believe we can have
confidence that such a standards body will only accept them when they have
reached a sufficiently high level of quality.

Cheers!
Don Syme

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-----Original Message-----
From: Matthias Kilian [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 11 September 2000 16:32
To: Andrew Kennedy
Cc: Erik Meijer; Ketil Malde; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: Usability of M$ specs [was: Haskell and the NGWS Runtime]


On Mon, 11 Sep 2000, Andrew Kennedy wrote:

> I agree that this construct is a touch under-specified; I've emailed
> the C# team with your criticism so hopefully it will get fixed. However, 
> it seems a little harsh to conclude that the .NET runtime is to be avoided

> as a target.

That was no conclusion but a question. If .NET is specified more
carefully than C#, it should be possible to port the runtime env. to other
platforms. One additional question is how .NET interacts with the
remainder of ths system (file system etc.); it's clear that Microsoft is
not interested in implementing any platform independent. However, if I
understand what I've read already, neither C# nor the .NET runtime
environment mentions any requirements to system libraries (as MFC for
example).

I've no idea about how much system dependend code has to be written to

- implement .NET on other platforms (i.e. several unices)
- implement .NET backends for Haskell and/or ML compilers

at least for basic functionality (file system access, sockets) there
should be not too much problems.

Regards,
        Kili

-- 
Auf deutschem Boden darf nie wieder ein Joint ausgehen.
[Wolfgang Neuss]


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