source-only release candidate

[Mark P Jones]

Hi Ross,

| Several useful changes and fixes have accumulated since the 
| last release (Nov 2003).  To get these to a wider audience, I 
| intend to do a source-only release soon.  The first release 
| candidate is at:
| 
http://cvs.haskell.org/Hugs/downloads/Sep2003/hugs98-Sep2003-rc1.tar.gz

Although I was able to build and run it on Redhat 9, I couldn't get it
to work on Windows.

I ran into a number of problems when I tried to build it on Windows using
cygwin.  An hour later or two later, I did eventually manage to get it to
compile, but then I couldn't get it to run and successfully load the
prelude.
After some attempts to debug it, time forced me to abandon the attempt.

I thought I'd try it again this evening using the msc compiler.  That was
a little easier (I only had to fix one problem before it compiled), but
again I couldn't get it to run.

You've mentioned before that you don't have a machine to try doing the
windows builds yourself.  And I'm afraid I don't have the time (or, it
would seem, the technical skill) to do this any more.

Is somebody else looking Windows builds?  I was surprised that this "release
candidate" doesn't build under Windows, and I'm certainly hoping that this
can be fixed in the release.

All the best,
Mark

PS.  One problem in both the cygwin and msc cases was the use of the symbol
"CONTEXT" in parser.y/parser.c and input.c, which clashes with a standard
symbol in the windows libraries.  I suggest renaming it to CTXT (if you
like, PREDICATES is probably available instead).  (I'm not at all convinced
the other changes I made were correct or effective, so I'll spare you the
details.)