ghc configure

[Simon Marlow]

C.M.Brown wrote:

> I've noticed that when you run ./configure on a ghc build lot's of
> repetition occurs. A lot of the time the same checks are being performed for
> each configure file in the ghc hierarchy. Could it be possible if some of
> these checks could be done once at a high level and then subsequent
> configures could refer to these checks to speed up
> configuration time? It's just configuring ghc on a mac G4 is a very time
> consuming process in it's own right!

Mainly this is due to modularity: many of the library packages can be built 
entirely separately from GHC, so their configure scripts are designed to be 
standalone.

I know that configure takes a long time on Windows, but I'm surprised if it's a 
bottleneck for other platforms.  How long does the build take?  Have you taken 
steps to speed up the build as described in the Building Guide?

Cheers,
	Simon