[Haskell-cafe] Re: Building DLLs

[Simon Marlow]

Andrew Coppin wrote:

> (1) is not of huge interest to me, but it's pleasing to know that it's 
> possible. (I don't actually know how DLLs work, but presumably if I were 
> to dig around in System.Win32 I could also call normal DLLs from Haskell 
> too if I desire...?)

Sure, that's possible.

> (2) is something I'd like to see - and I aplaud you for seeking to make 
> this a portable thing! (As well it should be.) One or other of the 
> developer wiki pages lists this as "things we'll definitely do for 
> 6.10"; can you confirm or refute that?

It's one of several things we quite get done in time for 6.10.1, I'll 
edit that page.

> Also, I read somewhere that you are/were looking at making the RTS into 
> a DLL. What's the status with that?

That's part of the same effort.  Once Haskell packages can go into 
DLLs/shared libraries, the RTS can too (indeed, it probably has to).

> Given that I know virtually nothing about how such low-level things 
> work, and I have no clue how GHC works internally, is there anything 
> useful I can do to help you guys with this stuff? I mean, other than 
> complaining that it's not done yet... ;-)

Help with testing and reporting bugs is always welcome!  Ee'll announce 
something when it's ready to test.

Cheers,
	Simon