[Haskell-cafe] Re: GHC ARM Hackathon (Re: Haskell on ARM )

[Braden Shepherdson]

Jeremy Shaw wrote:
> At Wed, 2 Jul 2008 11:16:18 -0700,
> Greg Fitzgerald wrote:
> 
>> Would anybody be interested in a "GHC on ARM Hackathon" in San Diego this
>> year?
> 
> Definitely. (Conveniently, I live in La Jolla).
> 
>> When is 6.10 estimated to come out?  Do we really need to wait for it?
> 
> According to this Release plan, the plan to release 6.10 around ICFP2008. 
> 
> http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Status/Releases
> 
> We wouldn't need a final release to get started, just something where
> the back-end changes are in place and working. One important item from
> the release plan is:
> 
>  * GHC now uses libffi to implement parts of the FFI, replacing some
>    of the home-grown and very architecture-specific code we had to do
>    this. Amongst other benefits, this will ease the task of porting
>    GHC in the future.
> 
> And possibly:
> 
>  * Substantial changes to the back end are likely, now that John Dias
>    is here as an intern. John Dias, Simon PJ, Norman Ramsey
> 
> It sounds like the changes to libffi might already be in 6.9. So,
> maybe we can start now ?
> 
> j.


Unfortunately that's a bit of a reach for me; I live in southern Ontario 
and will be in New York City from September to December. So, I will 
likely be unable to attend, though I'll certainly see if I can pull it 
off. I'd be paying out of pocket for the travel, unfortunately.

I definitely want to contribute what I can to this project, both because 
I want its result and because I want to learn more about GHC and the RTS.

As to waiting for 6.10, I won't be able to contribute much work here 
before late August anyway, by which point much of 6.10 will likely be 
solidified in the HEAD 6.9. Certainly there are experiments and other 
parts of the project that can be worked on while waiting for the 6.10 
release in late September.

I'll post the results of any experiments and any thoughts in the 
GHC-on-ARM wiki. Notably, a page on what devices the developers have 
comes to mind.


Braden Shepherdson
shepheb