7.8 Feature window

Ryan Newton rrnewton at gmail.com
Wed Aug 21 17:11:23 CEST 2013


Hi all,

It is not merged into "master" presently but I would like to propose the
three new primops that are on the "atomics" branch for inclusion in 7.8.
 These are pretty much completely apart from everything else and don't
break any existing code.

For the public library that exposes these things ("atomic-primops") it will
be a great boon to be able to depend on them in  7.8 and not have to wait
yet another release cycle [1].

Best,
  -Ryan

[1] P.S. 7.8 will already be a breaking change to atomic-primops, because
of the change in CMM syntax.  So if it has to be #ifdef'd anyway, we might
as well go straight to the Right Thing rather than having a proliferation
of intermediate hacks.




On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 1:01 PM, Austin Seipp <aseipp at pobox.com> wrote:

> All,
>
> GHC 7.8's release is drawing near. We would like to make a release
> candidate sometime around ICFP, which will be in late September.
> Unfortunately that's just over a month a way, so the clock is ticking!
>
> The tree will need a few weeks of stabilization. After that, we will
> release an RC, and likely branch. Then things will roughly return to normal.
>
> The exact date for feature cutoff is not set yet (but I will follow up
> soon on this.) So, I'd like a show of hands and a quick 'check in' for
> outstanding work for 7.8. There are a few things we know for sure are - or
> were - tentatively scheduled for this release:
>
>  * SIMD improvements
>  * New Template Haskell
>  * Constraint solver for type naturals
>
> These are - as far as I'm aware - the largest outstanding features which
> not quite yet in HEAD.
>
> For the release, we would like to minimize 'disruptive' features, because
> 7.8 already has many large changes. In particular, Dynamic GHCi and dynamic
> builds will likely prove the biggest challenge 'in the field', so we would
> like plenty of time to stress this as best we can for the RC, and the
> release itself.
>
> There are some things which we are fairly certain will not make it:
>
>  * Joachim's new newtype coercion implementation
>  * Adam's new record implementation
>
>  There are some things I'm not very privvy to perhaps, but could still go
> in:
>
>  * Nicolas possibly had some optimisation improvements according to Simon.
>
>  * Edsko had a small patch for extended plugin functionality in HEAD, but
> Luite and Thomas also have input here. Status is uncertain.
>
>  * ERDI was working on pattern synonyms. I believe you were having some
> trouble with the implementation. Can someone help him if necessary?
>
> Finally, there are loose ends to tie off:
>
>  * I believe Simon and Jose were having discussions about the new Typeable
> implementation, regarding hand-written instances. This should be fine for
> 7.8 and is mostly some behavioral tweaking I think.
>
> I've undoubtedly missed things here. Please fill me in. :)
>
> Note that before the freeze, you should interpret 'disruptive' with your
> own good judgement. Smaller patches and improvements are certainly welcome
> as always, and you shouldn't wait on me to push something if you feel good
> about it. If you're ever unsure, just ask. Worst case is something gets
> backed out, but it's nothing we cannot come back to.
>
> --
> Regards,
> Austin - PGP: 4096R/0x91384671
>
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>
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