Fwd: Re[2]: [Hugs-users] Status of Hugs? (last major release for Windows was 2003..)

[Bulat Ziganshin]

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This is a forwarded message
From: Bulat.Ziganshin at gmail.com <Bulat.Ziganshin at gmail.com>
To: "Neil Mitchell" <ndmitchell at gmail.com>
Date: Monday, February 20, 2006, 1:03:13 PM
Subject: [Hugs-users] Status of Hugs? (last major release for Windows was 2003..)

===8<==============Original message text===============
Hello Neil,

Monday, February 20, 2006, 6:31:44 AM, you wrote:

>> >    http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~ndm/projects/winhugs.php
>>
>> Yes, please try that out.  When WinHugs is ready, there will be a Hugs
>> release.

NM> It's pretty much ready now, I'll package up some final binaries
NM> tomorrow - whenever Hugs is in a ready state I'm happy to release.

i still have some suggestions before the final version can be rolled.
it's from docs on my Streams library:

The library fully supports Hugs 2003 and Hugs 2005, but

1) support for FD and MMFile is temporarily disabled because I don't know how
to build DLLs

2) Hugs 2003 doesn't include support for "instance Bits Word" and vGetBuf/vPutBuf,
so you need to add these implementations manually or delete the lines that use it
(look for "2003" in the sources)

3) WinHugs doesn't support preprocessing, so I included the MakeHugs.cmd script
to preprocess source files using cpphs



so, list of my suggestions for Hugs include:

* add preprocessing symbol HUGS_VERSION to distinguish Hugs06 from
previous builds and to allow distinguish future Hugs modifications

* (optional) add option to disable monomorphism restriction. as far as
i understand this restriction is just additional part of code and it
should be easy to skip this code when requested

* (optional) add hSetFileSize support. it should be easy using
ftruncate() and it will increase compatibility between Hugs ans GHC

* afair, at least one error i reported was not fixed immmediately. i
don't read hugs-bugs but if this still unfixed, it seems strange to me
to release Hugs with known errors


for WinHugs such list is bigger:

* ffihugs

* preprocessor. i'm displeased by the requirement to ship myrriad
versions of my library, one for each Hugs version+platform
combination. in addition, lack of preprocessor makes my edit/test
cycle more complicated and less intuitive. On the other side, adding
preprocessor to WInHugs should be very easy: instead of readig the
source file as is just run "cpphs.exe --noline -D__HUGS__
-D__HUGS_VERSION__=2005 -DSIZEOF_HSINT=4 -DSIZEOF_HSWORD=4" or
something like this on the file and read the resulting temporary file.
i do't see _any_ problem in implementing this. CPPHS is easily build
by ghc/mingw, its output with "--noline" don't contain any directives
and all lines is just at their right places. this will finally allow
to include in Hugs distribution original (non preprocessed) sources of
standard libs


i also have suggestions about WinHugs that should not delay its
releasing:

* reduce size of installer. it can be done in many ways but at least
i'm not glad to download 16 megs that can be really packed in 2 megs

* use text file to store global commands history


thank you for patience :)

-- 
Best regards,
 Bulat                            mailto:Bulat.Ziganshin at gmail.com
===8<===========End of original message text===========



-- 
Best regards,
 Bulat                            mailto:Bulat.Ziganshin at gmail.com