Setting a timetable

[Duncan Coutts]

On Sun, 2011-11-13 at 14:46 -0500, Don Stewart wrote:
> Ok.

Don, thanks for jumping in. I tried a month back or so to get things
going, and we did make some progress, but my attention has been divided
with lots of tasks in the cabal/hackage-server world.

> Then the question is: which compiler is GHC HQ blessing as stable at this
> point. GHC 7.0.4 looks like the best bet.

Yes, previously when I initiated this discussion we all agreed to do a
major release with GHC-7.0.4. We made some progress, Mark Lentczner hit
some problems with OSX. I think (Mark correct me if I'm wrong!) that
those are now solved.

We agreed on 7.0.4 because at the time 7.2.1 was agreed to be no good
for a HP release (too many bugs e.g. with Safe Haskell). GHC HQ also
told us that there would be no 7.2.2 release at all. That they were
going to concentrate on 7.4.x.

Now clearly GHC HQ changed their minds on 7.2.2 and are pushing the 7.4
branch back (I think so they can finish some features they want for
7.4).

So now that 7.2.2 is out I'm not sure if we want to revise our plans or
continue with the plan to do a major release with 7.0.4. I don't know
enough about what got fixed in 7.2.2. My inclination would be to
continue with 7.0.4. We've already done most of the work for that.

BTW, note that it would be a major release, i.e. 2011.4.0.0, not a minor
release like 2011.2.0.2. That's because we're bumping library versions.
We agreed the latter point last time we discussed this on this list.

So if you want my vote: we should go for a 2011.4.0.0 release as soon as
practical with ghc 7.0.4 and the latest libs.

-- 
Duncan Coutts, Haskell Consultant
Well-Typed LLP, http://www.well-typed.com/