> > Will ghc change interface format with each version?
>
> This is the biggest problem (and, interestingly, the least
> addressed :-)).
> Especially for binary distribution builders, it's quite
> inconvenient to
> rebuild every GHC-library on the system to match with the
> latest compiler
> version :-(
Unfortunately this is tricky to improve, because of our aggresive
cross-module optimisation strategy. If you recompile the prelude, then you
have to recompile everything that depends on it, and that includes all the
libraries.
However, if you are happy to compile a library with
-fignore-interface-pragmas, then you can get away without recompiling it if
the prelude, and any other libraries it was compiled against, don't change
their interfaces (i.e. they still export the same functions with the same
types etc.). If the interface changed, at the least you'll get a link
error, and at the worst you'll get a crash.
Come to think about it, there should be a way of saying
-fignore-interface-pragmas, but only for library code.
Cheers,
Simon
