ANNOUNCE: Cabal-1.4 release candidate

[Duncan Coutts]

Hi everyone,

== Cabal-1.4 release candidate ==

The second release candidate of Cabal-1.4 is out:
http://haskell.org/cabal/download.html

Please test and report bugs:
http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/

The aim for the Cabal-1.4 release is to get various fixes and
improvements into the hands of developers and to support a release of
cabal-install.

== cabal-install ==

A snapshot of cabal-install is also available:
http://haskell.org/cabal/download.html

It requires the zlib and HTTP packages (both are available from
hackage). Bug reports should go in the same trac as above.

cabal-install is intended to be the standard command line interface to
the whole Cabal/Hackage system. It replaces the "runhaskell Setup.hs"
interface and a few other tools you may or may not have heard of
(cabal-setup, cabal-upload, cabal-get). cabal-install is usable now and
we will be making a proper release some time after the Cabal-1.4
release.

== Testing ==

We are particularly interested in finding regressions from Cabal-1.2.x
or any important fixes that will require API changes since once we
release 1.4 we have to maintain API compatibility for the rest of the
1.4.x series.

This is also an excellent opportunity to make sure your favourite bug or
feature request is properly described in our bug tracker:
http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/

To help us guide development priorities please add yourself to the
ticket's cc list and describe why that bug or feature is important to
you.

== Compatibility ==

We have tried to preserve compatibility with all packages that worked
with the Cabal-1.2.x series. That is, packages that can be built using
Cabal (including custom Setup.hs scripts) but not packages that directly
import and use the Cabal API. Packages that directly import and use the
Cabal api will need updating. This affects packages that build distro
packages for example, rpm debs etc.

Currently we know of only one package on hackage which has a Setup.hs
script that compiles with 1.2 but fail to compile with 1.4. Takusen,
will require an update to be able to work with both Cabal-1.2.x and
1.4.x. A patch has been sent to the maintainers of Takusen.

== Credits ==

On behalf of the Cabal hackers and the community generally I'd like to
thank the large number of people who have contributed patches during
this development series. Previously I was rather worried that we were
not getting enough contributors to fix bugs and do new feature
development, but now I'm very pleased. :-)

== Get involved ==

Of course there's still a lot to do! We have big plans for Cabal-2.0,
cabal-install and the Hackage website. So if you're interested in
helping out with this core infrastructure project then:

 * subscribe to the cabal-devel mailing list:
     http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/cabal-devel

 * grab the source:
     http://haskell.org/cabal/code.html

 * read the guide to the source code:
     http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/wiki/SourceGuide

 * take a look at our list of bugs and feature requests:
     http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/report/12
   especially the easy tickets:
     http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/report/13

Duncan
(wearing his Cabal release manager hat)