[ANNOUNCE] GHC 9.8.1-alpha2 is now available

--===============3448928950290050551==
Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="=-=-=";
	micalg=pgp-sha256; protocol="application/pgp-signature"

--=-=-=
Content-Type: text/plain


The GHC developers are very pleased to announce the availability of the
second alpha prerelease of GHC 9.8.1. Binary distributions, source
distributions, and documentation are available at

               https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/9.8.1-alpha2

GHC 9.8 will bring a number of new features and improvements, including:

 * Preliminary support the `TypeApplications` language extension [type-binders],
   allowing types to be bound in type declarations.

 * Support for the `ExtendedLiterals` extension, providing syntax for
   non-word-sized numeric literals in the surface language
   [extended-literals]

 * Improved rewrite rule matching behavior, allowing limited matching of
   higher-order patterns

 * Better support for user-defined warnings by way of the `WARNING` pragma [warnings]

 * The introduction of the new `GHC.TypeError.Unsatisfiable`
   constraint, allowing more predictable user-defined type errors [unsatisfiable]

 * Implementation of the export deprecation proposal, allowing module
   exports to be marked with `DEPRECATE` pragmas [deprecated-exports]

 * The addition of build semaphore support for parallel compilation;
   with coming support in `cabal-install` this will allow better use of
   parallelism in multi-package builds [jsem]

 * More efficient representation of info table provenance information,
   reducing binary sizes by over 50% in some cases when
   `-finfo-table-map` is in use

A full accounting of changes can be found in the [release notes].
This alpha includes around two dozen bug-fixes relative to alpha 1.

We would like to thank GitHub, IOG, the Zw3rk stake pool,
Well-Typed, Tweag I/O, Serokell, Equinix, SimSpace, the Haskell
Foundation, and other anonymous contributors whose on-going financial
and in-kind support has facilitated GHC maintenance and release
management over the years. Finally, this release would not have been
possible without the hundreds of open-source contributors whose work
comprise this release.

As always, do give this release a try and open a [ticket] if you see
anything amiss.

Happy compiling,

~ Ben


[type-binders]: https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/proposals/0425-decl-invis-binders.rst
[extended-literals]: https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/proposals/0451-sized-literals.rst
[unsatisfiable]: https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/proposals/0433-unsatisfiable.rst
[warnings]: https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/proposals/0541-warning-pragmas-with-categories.rst
[deprecated-exports]: https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/proposals/0134-deprecating-exports-proposal.rst
[jsem]: https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/proposals/0540-jsem.rst
[release notes]: https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/9.8.1-alpha2/docs/users_guide/9.8.1-notes.html
[ticket]: https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/issues/new

--=-=-=
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc"

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQEzBAEBCAAdFiEE/lq2yR/qWXw7MRgLc+3p6M+67wEFAmTU/VYACgkQc+3p6M+6
7wGz2ggAvuo9LBAPvDIqVKllcXZgfwLUKgPcCJ8xzv6q62sbOtqFCu/jGhlTxcmZ
mYjAX6vmiVQxSOR/2uwDFUlWYRf2mBYLwaofP+2Xfh9XwsM22kg3HnTvYwkSwg7E
o7PUVod/xFItvkZBbc08CYEVyUoqw+UGZ23ZcYuLdhqaOlmdm9f1HbBvmkx3FQep
xubv04Cx1toBxh+LE4TZiYbQHWT7WQKVEENkCf4ARg3QstFdfhGIaZxdVCOR42kH
hQl5ao7X8ziI1wSlCBJb4DRlU4WppW7ST6ZkrnlxPubNXTW3ZOCBh2Wfbrf1o0cR
Hn8pmr25xMr2ihPiICTg5zeU3qc69w==
=4Ifs
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--=-=-=--

--===============3448928950290050551==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: inline

X19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX18KSGFza2VsbC1D
YWZlIG1haWxpbmcgbGlzdApUbyAodW4pc3Vic2NyaWJlLCBtb2RpZnkgb3B0aW9ucyBvciB2aWV3
IGFyY2hpdmVzIGdvIHRvOgpodHRwOi8vbWFpbC5oYXNrZWxsLm9yZy9jZ2ktYmluL21haWxtYW4v
bGlzdGluZm8vaGFza2VsbC1jYWZlCk9ubHkgbWVtYmVycyBzdWJzY3JpYmVkIHZpYSB0aGUgbWFp
bG1hbiBsaXN0IGFyZSBhbGxvd2VkIHRvIHBvc3Qu

--===============3448928950290050551==--