[Haskell-cafe] Three Google Summer of Code project proposals

[Andrew Coppin]

> *** Build multiple Cabal packages in parallel ***
> http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/summer-of-code/ticket/1594
>
> Many developers have multi-core machines but Cabal runs the build
> process in a single thread, only making use of one core. If the build
> process could be parallelized build times could be cut by perhaps a
> factor of 2-8, depending on the number of cores and opportunity of
> parallel execution available.

Isn't the Cabal build process strictly I/O-limited rather than CPU-limited?

> *** Simpler support for isolated/sandboxed Cabal builds ***
> http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/summer-of-code/ticket/1590
>
> cabal-dev and capri allow developers to build packages in their own
> sandboxes, using a separate package database for each. This allows for
> isolated builds and prevents breakages due e.g. package upgrades.
> Merging cabal-dev into Cabal allows us to share lots of code and makes
> the feature more accessible to developers.

This would be very useful.

PS. I also love the way that performing "cabal build" causes it to claim 
that it's also registering the package, when in fact it isn't. Not sure 
why that spurious message is there...