[Haskell-cafe] ANNOUNCE: GHC version 7.10.2

[Ben Gamari]

=====================================================================
The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 7.10.2
=====================================================================

The GHC Team is pleased to announce a new bug-fix release of GHC,
7.10.2.

There have been a number of significant bug fixes since the 7.10.1 (with
over 70 defects fixed). These include fixes affecting type-checker
correctness, runtime stability, and compiler performance. For this
reason we highly recommend that users of 7.10.1 upgrade quickly.

Note that due to changes made in this release to GHC's optimizer,
previously fragile-but-working rewrite rules may fail to fire. One
example of this was found in the widely-used `text` package late in the
release cycle, which manifested in long compilation times and poor code
generation for `Text` literals (see [Trac #10528]). Users are advised to
use text >=1.2.1.2 which includes more robust rewrite rules.

The full release notes including a complete listing of the changes in
this release can be found here,

https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/7.10.2/docs/html/users_guide/release-7-10-2.html


[Trac #10528]: https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/10528


How to get it
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Both binary and source tarballs of GHC itself are available on
the release download page,

https://www.haskell.org/ghc/download_ghc_7_10_2

For a more smoother, better integrated experience users are encouraged
to find a Haskell distribution. While these alternatives may not yet
include 7.10.2, they offer tools and libraries to quickly get users up
and running, as well as potentially better integration with the host
operating system and package manager. See,

https://www.haskell.org/downloads

for more details.


Background
~~~~~~~~~~

Haskell is a standard lazy functional programming language.

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, whatever). GHC is distributed under a
BSD-style open source license.

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 (see below),

https://www.haskell.org/


Supported Platforms
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The list of platforms supported by GHC and the people responsible for
them can be found here,

https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Platforms
https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/CodeOwners

Ports to other platforms are possible with varying degrees of
difficulty. The Building Guide describes how to go about porting to a
new platform:

https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Building

Developers
~~~~~~~~~~

If you enjoy using GHC, you will likely also enjoy contributing to it!
We are always looking for new contributors. Instructions on accessing
our source code repository, and getting started with hacking on GHC, are
available from the GHC developer site,

https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/

Mailing lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We run mailing lists for GHC users and bug reports; to subscribe, use
the web interfaces at

https://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users
https://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

https://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/

Some GHC developers hang out on #haskell on IRC, too:

https://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/IRC_channel

Please report bugs using our bug tracking system. Instructions on
reporting bugs can be found here:

https://www.haskell.org/ghc/reportabug

Hashes & Signatures
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/7.10.2/ you will find a signed
copy of the SHA256 hashes for the tarballs, using my GPG key,

Benjamin Gamari <b...@well-typed.com>

Fingerprint: FFEB 7CE8 1E16 A36B 3E2D
ED6F 2DE0 4D4E 97DB 64AD

[Andrés Sicard-Ramírez]

Hi,

On 29 July 2015 at 10:26, Ben Gamari <b...@well-typed.com> wrote:
> The GHC Team is pleased to announce a new bug-fix release of GHC,
> 7.10.2.

Thanks for the release!

FYI, there are various missing *.tar.xz files in the SHA256SUMS file in

http://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/7.10.2/

Best regards,

--
Andrés
_______________________________________________
Haskell-Cafe mailing list
Haskel...@haskell.org
http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

[Ben Gamari]

Andrés Sicard-Ramírez <a...@eafit.edu.co> writes:

> Hi,
>
> On 29 July 2015 at 10:26, Ben Gamari <b...@well-typed.com> wrote:
>> The GHC Team is pleased to announce a new bug-fix release of GHC,
>> 7.10.2.
>
> Thanks for the release!
>
> FYI, there are various missing *.tar.xz files in the SHA256SUMS file in
>
> http://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/7.10.2/
>

I suspect this may be due to the (Content Delivery Network (CDN) caches
being stale. Unfortunately this seems to be a persistent issue. You can
likely fool the CDN by inserting superfluous / characters in the URL
(thanks to Herbert for the tip). For instance,

http://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/7.10.2///SHA256SUMS

Cheers,

- Ben

[Andrés Sicard-Ramírez]

On 29 July 2015 at 11:28, Ben Gamari <b...@well-typed.com> wrote:
>> FYI, there are various missing *.tar.xz files in the SHA256SUMS file in
>>
>> http://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/7.10.2/
>>
> I suspect this may be due to the (Content Delivery Network (CDN) caches
> being stale. Unfortunately this seems to be a persistent issue. You can
> likely fool the CDN by inserting superfluous / characters in the URL
> (thanks to Herbert for the tip). For instance,
>
> http://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/7.10.2///SHA256SUMS

This fixed the issue. Thanks!

[Emanuel Borsboom]

I’m getting 403 Forbidden errors on the freebsd binaries:

$ curl -sSL http://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/7.10.2/ghc-7.10.2-i386-portbld-freebsd.tar.xz
<html>
<head><title>403 Forbidden</title></head>
<body bgcolor="white">
<center><h1>403 Forbidden</h1></center>
<hr><center>nginx/1.6.2</center>
</body>
</html>
$ curl -sSL http://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/7.10.2/ghc-7.10.2-x86_64-portbld-freebsd.tar.xz
<html>
<head><title>403 Forbidden</title></head>
<body bgcolor="white">
<center><h1>403 Forbidden</h1></center>
<hr><center>nginx/1.6.2</center>
</body>
</html>

​

[Mikhail Glushenkov]

Hi,

On 29 July 2015 at 17:26, Ben Gamari <b...@well-typed.com> wrote:
> [...]

> The full release notes including a complete listing of the changes in
> this release can be found here,
>
> https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/7.10.2/docs/html/users_guide/release-7-10-2.html

This gives me error 404.

[Ben Gamari]

Mikhail Glushenkov <the.dead....@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi,
>
> On 29 July 2015 at 17:26, Ben Gamari <b...@well-typed.com> wrote:
>> [...]
>> The full release notes including a complete listing of the changes in
>> this release can be found here,
>>
>> https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/7.10.2/docs/html/users_guide/release-7-10-2.html
>
> This gives me error 404.
>

I'm not sure what else to say other than to suggest adding superfluous
`/` characters to the URL as mentioned previously. The document is
there, the CDN just still hasn't realized it.

Cheers,

- Ben

[Ben Gamari]

Hello again!

See below for an important announcement regarding the `text` issue
described earlier.

Ben Gamari <b...@well-typed.com> writes:

> =====================================================================
> The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 7.10.2
> =====================================================================
>
> The GHC Team is pleased to announce a new bug-fix release of GHC,
> 7.10.2.
>
> There have been a number of significant bug fixes since the 7.10.1 (with
> over 70 defects fixed). These include fixes affecting type-checker
> correctness, runtime stability, and compiler performance. For this
> reason we highly recommend that users of 7.10.1 upgrade quickly.
>
> Note that due to changes made in this release to GHC's optimizer,
> previously fragile-but-working rewrite rules may fail to fire. One
> example of this was found in the widely-used `text` package late in the
> release cycle, which manifested in long compilation times and poor code
> generation for `Text` literals (see [Trac #10528]). Users are advised to
> use text >=1.2.1.2 which includes more robust rewrite rules.
>

It has been brought to my attention that the fix included in
text-1.2.1.2 does not in fact fix the rule issues triggered by GHC
7.10.2 (see the later comments on #10528 for details). I have pushed
text-1.2.1.3 to Hackage which finally resolves this issue.

Users of GHC 7.10.2 should upgrade to text >=1.2.1.3 at their earliest
convenience.

Cheers,

- Ben

[James M]

There was talk from an earlier email thread of releasing the Haskell Platform at the same time as 7.10.2.

I am referring to the weekly news of 2015/05/11:

https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/blog/weekly20150511

and this email thread:

https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/ghc-devs/2015-May/008911.html

Was this plan abandoned? Or was there something unexpected that is delaying it?

James

[Brandon Allbery]

On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 12:52 PM, James M <jma...@eecs.berkeley.edu> wrote:

There was talk from an earlier email thread of releasing the Haskell Platform at the same time as 7.10.2.

I think the right place to ask this is libr...@haskell.org. I would imagine they're in final testing and/or getting release packages in place. (Note as previously mentioned that "text" was just updated, and the Platform needs that; this presumably means they had to start over making release packages.)

--

brandon s allbery kf8nh                               sine nomine associates

allb...@gmail.com                                  ball...@sinenomine.net

unix, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure, xmonad        http://sinenomine.net

[Ben Gamari]

James M <jma...@eecs.berkeley.edu> writes:

> There was talk from an earlier email thread of releasing the Haskell
> Platform at the same time as 7.10.2.
>
> I am referring to the weekly news of 2015/05/11:
> https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/blog/weekly20150511
>
> and this email thread:
> https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/ghc-devs/2015-May/008911.html
>
>
> Was this plan abandoned? Or was there something unexpected that is delaying
> it?
>

Not at all! There ended up being a bit of timing skew between the Platform
and GHC releases but an approximately concurrent release is still the
plan. The Platform folks are hard at work as we speak, in the final
stages of pushing out their release. I expect it will be announced
shortly.

Unfortunately due to the late notice of the text issue, the initial
release will ship with text-1.2.1.1, which is still affected by the
rewrite issue. That being said, the impact of this issue is mostly on
compile time, in most cases you shouldn't see much impact on runtime
performance. Moreover, they will be working to push out another release
with text-1.2.1.3 in the coming days.

Cheers,

- Ben