[Haskell-cafe] Re: Haskell on ARM (was Re: ANN: Topkata)

[Simon Marlow]

Braden Shepherdson wrote:

> So, assuming some GHC dev doesn't swoop down and fix this, what options 
> are left to the project in the short term?
> 
> An unregisterised build of an old 6.6 should work, that would get us a 
> working, though aging, GHC. Unfortunately a lot of the porting work to 
> move from that first unregisterised build to a registerised one (even 
> without native code-gen) wouldn't be transferable to a later 6.9 or 
> 6.10, since 6.9 has moved from using the Evil Mangler to libffi.

Sorry for the delay in replying.  I'm not sure if you're aware, but when 
you have an unregisterised 6.6 working, you can use that to build an 
unregisterised 6.8 and later versions.  Building the unregisterised 6.6 
would just be a stepping stone to the latest version, and only needs to be 
done once.

This may be moot if we get bootstrapping working again, but until then I'd 
guess going via 6.6 is the easiest route.

For the registerised port, you really need a native code generator (the 
mangler is on death row, yay).  At a rough guess, I'd say porting the NCG 
would take a couple of weeks or so for someone unfamiliar with the code. 
Hopefully we'll improve that when we refactor the NCG as part of the 
backend overhaul.

Cheers,
	Simon