[Haskell-cafe] Haskell, GHC, and ABI

[Sean Leather]

> Dynamic linking doesn't solve all the problems, we still have the problem
> that GHC does a lot of cross-module inlining, regardless of whether dynamic
> linking is used.  However, I really would like to have a way to have
> complete control over what is exposed across a package boundary.  We need
> this not just for licensing reasons, but also for making a dynamic library
> with a fixed ABI, so it can be upgraded later.
>
> Incedentally the lack of this feature is one reason I've not being rushing
> to get shared libraries into GHC.  They're just not that useful unless you
> can upgrade a library independently of the things it depends on.
>

I completely agree. Having a fixed ABI that survives library changes and
compiler upgrades is an important factor in achieving a useful system.

Incidentally, I perused
http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/DynamicLinking and didn't see much
about this here. Is there some notes or a plan for reaching this goal with
GHC (or any other Haskell compiler)?

Sean
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