pkgsrc/lang/ghc-bootstrap/DESCR

GHC: The Glasgow Haskell Compiler.

This is a package for generating binary bootstrap kits for GHC. The
main GHC package is lang/ghc; that is all you need unless you are
working on the GHC package.
Add a ghc-bootstrap package for making ghc binary bootstrap kits. This is a ghc 6.8.3 package based on lang/ghc. As of ghc 7.something, the old system of bootstrapping ghc from generated C sources has been deprecated. While in theory we could move pkgsrc up to that point using C bootstrap kits like the one currently used by lang/ghc, there are several reasons not to: (1) it's a dead end; (2) there is no available infrastructure for building such kits, as in the past it was done by hand by the package maintainer; (3) building ghc from C sources wasn't ever really fully supported anyway and usually requires fiddling to make it work. For this reason, by the power invested in me as one of the few people who actually uses ghc for something nontrivial (much as I perhaps regret doing so)... we will switch to binary bootstrap kits now. The bootstrap kits generated here are just installable ghc packages under a different name. This package depends on lang/ghc and uses the installed ghc to build another copy; then that copy becomes the bootstrap kit. That is, the bootstrap kit is the pkgsrc package you get by doing 'make package' in this directory. I have a (tested and working) patch to switch lang/ghc to use a new bootstrap kit generated here, but I am intentionally holding off on committing it until after 2013q4 is branched. That way anyone who wants a bootstrap kit for a platform currently supported by lang/ghc can get one by checking out 2013q4, building ghc, and then building ghc-bootstrap. Note that these bootstrap kits cannot be used with the wip/ghc package; it uses a built but not installed ghc source tree as the bootstrap kit. You can capture one of these from here if you really want to by doing 'make' and then tarring up work/ghc-6.8.3... I think. I haven't tested that, and for now it won't work anyway as wip/ghc is too many versions ahead for such a build to be supported. Because ghc can only be built with a recent ghc, updating lang/ghc to a recent version will require a ping/pong process with ghc and ghc-bootstrap. This is the chief reason to have a separate ghc-bootstrap package; it should be perfectly possible to build lang/ghc with a lang/ghc package as the bootstrap too. 2013-12-15 03:00:07 +01:00			`GHC: The Glasgow Haskell Compiler.`

			`This is a package for generating binary bootstrap kits for GHC. The`
			`main GHC package is lang/ghc; that is all you need unless you are`
			`working on the GHC package.`