[Haskell-cafe] Announce: Haskell Platform 8.6.3

On behalf of the Haskell Platform team, I'm happy to announce the release of Haskell Platform 8.6.3 Now available at https://www.haskell.org/platform/ This includes GHC 8.6.3, cabal-install 2.4.1.0, and stack 1.9.3. This is the first platform released in the 8.6 series, as we have waited until a number of bugfix ghc releases stabilized things across all core platforms (linux, os x, windows). A full list of contents is available at https://www.haskell.org/platform/contents.html The list of GHC changes is available at: https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/blog/ghc-8.6.1-released https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/blog/ghc-8.6.2-released https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/blog/ghc-8.6.3-released A list of cabal changes is available at: https://hackage.haskell.org/package/cabal-install-2.4.1.0/changelog A list of stack changes is available at: https://docs.haskellstack.org/en/stable/ChangeLog/#v193 There are a number of important changes in this release, with more changes planned in the future. First: Win32 builds are working again and provided. Thanks to all the folks (especially Tamar) who helped sort out the build issues on that platform. Second, only core builds are provided, not "full" builds. This release is the first one where cabal-install warns on legacy commands and asks users to either use the v1-prefix for them or the v2/new prefix to move to the new-build system. As such, providing additional global packages outside of the core set now makes even less sense than in the past, where we had been already discouraging it for some time. Finally, there are no linux generic builds provided, and instead we recommend use of the ghcup tool (https://github.com/haskell/ghcup/) in combination with the stack install script. We feel this gives a smoother and better experience than the existing install process, being less invasive (not requiring root) and more flexible (by running ghc's own configure script it can better detect differences in configuration between distros). What does this all mean for the future of the platform? What I would like to move towards is the following. First: replacing the mac installer by ghcup as well in the near future. While a native installer has its advantages, the same reasons that ghcup is recommended on linux hold for mac as well, although with somewhat less force. Because of how Windows works, the difficulties of moving from a native installer are much more real, and we would anticipate keeping a native installer for the time being. Second: with the platform installers (or recommended installers) now really a delivery mechanism for core binaries and nothing else, to move to split the platform into two components. A) a set of recommended install instructions for major platforms (and a native windows installer), and B) a set of recommended and known-compatible packages which cover most "extended standard-lib" bases and which we again grow much more freely, as in the past. This will require some redesign and reconceptualization of the website, and would be a great opportunity for people that want to chip-in to move things forward to get involved. Please reach out if you'd like to lend a hand! Happy Haskell Hacking all, Gershom