interoperability/portabilizing for GHC.. Summer of Code?

[Simon Marlow]

Isaac Dupree wrote:
> here are some of the things that might need or want to be done, 
> extending from my task of making GHC code more portable (which 
> thankfully other people are helping with too, e.g. by cleaning up 
> warnings!)
> 
> - not just ghc/compiler Haskell code; at least the makefile system needs 
> not to use specific ghc flags when not using ghc as compiler
> - alex/happy
> - implement LANGUAGE, PatternGuards in Jhc
> - hopefully perhaps the nonportable/base GHC.* modules can be split off 
> into another package somehow, but this is probably someone else's territory
> - look into nhc or yhc
> - make sure Cabal can handle it
> - reduce #ifdef platforms in GHC code... I should think that GHC could 
> be able to be, at least, compiled as a cross-compiler.  Compiling to 
> some unregisterised .hc that could be compiled and linked with other .c 
> on any platform would be nice -- is it at all possible? -- though it 
> would possibly impact performance by making some things non-constant.
> - minimum hoped-for goal: make bootstrapping on new platforms be able to 
> be easier, less ad-hoc (either unregisterised or you have to write an 
> NCG, I suppose, but anyway.)

I did some analysis into improving portabilty after the last survey, see

http://www.haskell.org//pipermail/glasgow-haskell-users/2005-May/008456.html

I think it would be nice to eliminate all those #ifdefs in the compiler, 
but its not easy.

> Do you think it's plausible to apply for this as haskell.org Summer of 
> Code project (I'm a U.S. college student now, which explains why I've 
> been too busy to work on GHC stuff, and in the fall) ; I don't know much 
> about the process, and of course there's lots of competition, but, any 
> advice?

Sure.  But if I'm honest, I'm not sure this would be a top priority for the 
Haskell community (I could be wrong).  After all, GHC already works on 99% 
of platforms, so we're only helping a few people here.  You'd have to make 
a pretty strong case, and get plenty of support.  I'd be happy to mentor if 
the project gets accepted.

Cheers,
	Simon