GHC kit for Windows

[Graham Klyne]

At 15:34 03/02/04 +0000, Simon Peyton-Jones wrote:
>Graham wrote
>
>| > I note that the GHC kit for Windows includes some of the (I presume)
>| > MinGW
>| > binutil components, but does not include 'ar'.  I find that 'ar' is
>| > needed
>| > for building HaXml.  May I suggest that 'ar' also be included in
>this
>| > kit?
>
>Sigbjorn says
>
>| Adding 'ar' is clearly trivial, but the tools that GHC installers
>| include aren't meant to be used by the public, only by GHC
>| to avoid having to rely on external tools when compiling&
>| linking (e.g., 'gcc' and 'ld' don't work as-is, but need the right
>| -B setting). I'm not strongly against it, but adding other dev
>| tools does have potential support costs
>
>I'm inclined to agree with Sigbjorn here.  Where would we stop?  GHC
>does include some Mingw stuff "in its belly", but you are not supposed
>to know or care how GHC does its work.  You certainly aren't expected to
>invoke those tools directly.  If you want anything more than GHC, I
>think the best thing is to get Mingw or Cygwin or SFU.

Fair point.  My counter argument would be that the 'ar' utility is (I 
think) needed to create a GHC package (from just Haskell source files).  Am 
I right about this?  Maybe a useful touchstone might be:  would be it 
appropriate to be able create a GHC package using *just* the GHC command?

OTOH, if the GHC package structure is to be displaced by the new library 
infrastructure project, then I'd fully agree with you.

Here's a possible simple compromise:  in the documentation of GHC packages, 
include a link to the MinGW kit [1] that is needed to build a package on 
windows?  (It took me some time to track down what I needed.)

#g
--

[1] http://www.mingw.org/
     http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml
     http://prdownloads.sf.net/mingw/MinGW-3.1.0-1.exe?download


------------
Graham Klyne
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