GHC 7.8.3 release

[Austin Seipp]

Hello all,

After a long week, I've finally gotten a little time to reply to
emails, and I mainly have one question I'd like to ask.

First, please direct your attention to this:

https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/query?status=closed&status=merge&status=patch&milestone=7.8.3&group=resolution&col=id&col=summary&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=component&col=version&order=priority

This is the 7.8.3 milestone, but it only considers things that are:

 - 1) Fixed
 - 2) Going to be merged
 - 3) Are a patch to be still merged.

That is, it is a solid representation of the difference between 7.8.2
and the 7.8 branch tip.

The question is: when should we do the release? There are several bugs
there that seem quite problematic for users - #9045, #7097, #9001,
#8768 and #9078 in particular.

If these bugs are really problematic (and I sort of feel they are)
then the release can happen soon. I can do it within a week from now,
and we could punt more to a 7.8.4 release.

I ask this because my time to dedicate to GHC is a bit thin right now,
so you must help me decide what's important! So please let me know -
just a general vote in favor of doing it within some X timeframe (even
'real soon' or 'a week would be great') would be nice.

PS: I apologize for the lack of status updates and brief email - my
time for GHC has been in very short order the past two weeks in
particular, and I've finally just returned to a computer (not mine)
for right now to ask this.

PPS: This might also impact the 7.10 schedule, but last Simon and I
talked, we thought perhaps shooting for ICFP this time (and actually
hitting it) was a good plan. So I'd estimate on that a 7.8.4 might
happen a few months from now, after summer.

-- 
Regards,

Austin Seipp, Haskell Consultant
Well-Typed LLP, http://www.well-typed.com/