<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Dear Simon!</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Happy Birthday!!! :)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Thank you so much for all the incredible work that you have done and the guidance that you have provided over the many years. I personally have profited enormously from your kindness, and I am very grateful for that. In addition, your unwavering enthusiasm for and work on GHC, in particular, and functional programming, in general, have always been a great inspiration.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Thank you very much and all the best for this and many more years!!</div><div class="">Manuel</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">PS: I have declared email defeat long ago. I am impressed that you could keep up with it for so long.</div><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">Simon Peyton Jones <<a href="mailto:simonpj@microsoft.com" class="">simonpj@microsoft.com</a>>:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Dear GHC devs (all 600+ of you),<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">It’s my birthday (well it was a few minutes ago, but I became distracted by #11379). I am 58. GHC is alive and well and, happily, so am I.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">However, of late I have found that my GHC inbox, which I used to be able to keep under control, just grows and grows. Mostly this is good; it reflects the fact that GHC has lots of users, that they vigorously expand up to (and often well beyond) the limits of what GHC can do, and that increasingly GHC a lot of developers contributing actively to its code base. <o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">But it has its downsides. I used to be able to keep up with the Trac and email traffic. Trusty techniques like “delete anything mentioning ‘dynamic linking’ or ‘Unicode’” would cut the traffic in half. But that doesn’t work any more. Too many interesting things are happening.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">So this email is to say three things:<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 6pt 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;" class=""><span class="">·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Times New Roman';" class=""> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span>First,<b class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>thank you</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to the increasingly large number of you who are contributing actively to GHC’s development. GHC is a big system, and no one person can be on top of all of it. GHC no longer depends on one of two people: it depends on all of you. You know who you are – thank you.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 6pt 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;" class=""><span class="">·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Times New Roman';" class=""> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span>Second,<b class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>apologies</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to anyone who is stuck waiting for me. Although there are large chunks of GHC that I know little about, there are other parts that are dear to my heart: the renamer, typechecker, Core, optimisation, and so on. I write code most days and enjoy it. So I do want to continue to play a very active supporting and reviewing role, as well as authoring, in these parts. But I’m conscious that doing so puts me in a lot of critical paths.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 6pt 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Here’s a suggestion: if you are blocked on something from me, email me directly. By all means copy ghc-devs if you want others in the conversation, but make it clear that you need my input. That’ll work better than putting up a Phab review, or a Trac comment, and hoping I’ll see it. I probably will, but it won’t stick out from other 20 Phab reviews that I would like to do. I don’t promise to turn everything around fast, but it’ll increase the chances!<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 6pt 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;" class=""><span class="">·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Times New Roman';" class=""> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span>Third, in a vain attempt to at least keep some kind of handle on the state of play, I keep an ill-organised<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class=""><a href="https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Status/SLPJ-Tickets" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114); text-decoration: underline;" class="">page of tickets that I’m interested in</a></b>. A cursory glance will confirm that there is zero chance that I will attend to them all. So please do pick up some of them and dig in. Not many are trivial; most require some investigation, some design work, some discussion of alternatives, etc. But most of them would benefit from love and attention. If you are looking for suggestions for things to do, that might be a good place to start.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Thanks!<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Simon<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><o:p class=""> </o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 6pt 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><o:p class=""> </o:p></p></div><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">_______________________________________________</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">ghc-devs mailing list</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><a href="mailto:ghc-devs@haskell.org" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114); text-decoration: underline; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class="">ghc-devs@haskell.org</a><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><a href="http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114); text-decoration: underline; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class="">http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs</a></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></body></html>