[Haskell-cafe] Some random newbie questions

[Henning Thielemann]

On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Benjamin Pierce wrote:

> * What are the relative advantages of Hugs and GHC, beyond the obvious (Hugs
>   is smaller and easier for people not named Simon to modify, while GHC is a
>   real compiler and has the most up-to-date hacks to the type checker)?  Do
>   people generally use one or the other for everything, or are they similar
>   enough to use Hugs at some moments and GHC at others?

Hugs is compiles faster, that is, it detects type errors faster than GHC
and thus it starts program execution earlier. So I use Hugs for fast type
checking and simple scripts, that should start quickly rather than run
short. I'm using GHC for maximum execution speed and to track down type
errors, because its error messages are more detailed.