[Haskell-cafe] Crazy idea, building ghc with cabal?

[Alexander Dunlap]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 2:48 PM, Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
<ivan.miljenovic at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 30 November 2010 03:46, Joris Putcuyps <joris.putcuyps at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello
>>
>> Could it be done and would it be interesting, building 'ghc' using
>> cabal?
>>
>>  * 'lhc' does it
>>  * Use 'cabal-rpm' and 'cabal2arch' to create packages for linux
>>   distributions
>>  * As ordinary user, install specific versions in your home
>>   directory.
>>   cabal install ghc => $HOME/.cabal/bin/ghc
>>  * Get base packages as a dependency.
>
> ... except we then have a chicken and egg problem: GHC is built with
> Cabal, which needs a Haskell compiler/implementation, etc. ;-)
>
> --
> Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
> Ivan.Miljenovic at gmail.com
> IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com

Well, GHC is already written in Haskell, so you already need GHC to
compile GHC. I think the reasons are more to do with the fact that
Cabal doesn't have some features that are needed for such a complex
build as GHC, maybe including the bootstrapping that needs to happen.

Alex