GHC status report

[Simon Peyton Jones]

| Dynamic linking has been a huge headache in GHC, and it's not clear that
| it's an overall improvement compared with the static linker.  Now that
| 7.8 is out of the way, it's time to have a conversation about whether we
| want to do dynamic linking again for 7.10, or revert to static linking.

I echo this. Dynamic linking has had many un-anticipated costs and it is still very far from sorted out.  It originally felt like a Fantastic Idea to give up our own linker and adopt the system linker, but it now feels to me like a black hole, endlessly sucking effort and increasing complexity.

My viewpoint is highly un-informed about details; I just watch the traffic going by.  And of course it does have benefits that doubtless generate less traffic.

Simon

| 
| 
| 
| >
| > On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 6:13 PM, Simon Peyton Jones
| > <simonpj at microsoft.com <mailto:simonpj at microsoft.com>> wrote:
| >
| >     As Austin has told us, there's a draft of the *GHC Status Report
| for
| >     the HCAR*, here:____
| >
| >     https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Status/May14____
| >
| >     Have we missed out something  you have been working hard on?  Do
| >     take a moment to add a bullet in an appropriate place (it's a
| >     wiki).  I'd like to be sure that we are giving credit to all the
| >     appropriate people, so please help us fix that too.  GHC is a team
| >     effort.____
| >
| >     Deadline is 1 May I think.____
| >
| >     Thanks____
| >
| >     Simon____
| >
| >     __ __
| >
| >
| >     _______________________________________________
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| >
| >
| >
| >
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| >