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GHC now runs in the browser

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Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#121

Post by nothrabannosir »

lrvick wrote: post #39
de6u99er wrote: post #34

Serious question. Is Haskell still a thing?

We cannot even include it in stagex because there is still literally no way to compile it from source and thus no way to do a real reproducible build, and there is no one left that cares about the language enough to do this. Honestly it has to be regarded as a dead language until this is resolved.

I dug into this and it turns out there's an active, multi year effort underway to solve exactly this, along the exact ways you´d expect, with references to guix and bootstrappable.org etc, making steady progress: https://discourse.haskell.org/t/what-s-needed-to-bootstrap-g...

Reading through that thread gives me a very different idea of the state of haskell than I got from reading your comments.

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#122

Post by lrvick »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #121
lrvick wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We cannot even include it in stagex because there is still literally no way to compile it from source and thus no way to do a real reproducible build, and there is no one left that cares about the language enough to do this. Honestly it has to be regarded as a dead language until this is resolved.

I dug into this and it turns out there's an active, multi year effort underway to solve exactly this, along the exact ways you´d expect, with references to guix and bootstrappable.org etc, making steady progress: https://discourse.haskell.org/t/what-s-needed-to-bootstrap-g... Reading through that thread gives me a very different idea of the state of haskell than I got from reading your comments.

Efforts pop up every once in a while, usually with no results. As I said elsewhere, if they actually pull it off this time then my tone changes to one of willingness from my team and I to put in the work to use these efforts to support deterministic multi-signed builds in stagex.

It would make GHC (and pandoc) something we could have in tree which would be awesome. I am just annoyed it seems like such a low priority.

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#123

Post by lrvick »

liveoneggs wrote: post #119
lrvick wrote: post #37

Unfortunately there is still no way to actually bootstrap haskell (or anything based on it) which makes it impossible to put anything written in Haskell near any high trust linux distribution or environment. I guess sandboxing the untrusted binary in a browser is -something- to let people play with haskell in a lower risk way for the moment at least but it is hard to take a language seriously or trust it with no way…

doesn't rust have the same problem? I've known this about haskell for ages and I think it's just the new norm ("trust us, bro")

Not anymore. Real pain in the ass to bootstrap but thanks to mrustc combined with our work in stagex we have an easy to audit path now in a 100% bootstrapped distro.

Unfortunately due to no first party support or interest from the Rust team, we have to build through 15+ versions to get to latest and it takes 6+ hours to build with a 20+ core system, but it works.

https://codeberg.org/stagex/stagex/src/branch/main/packages/...

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#124

Post by nothrabannosir »

lrvick wrote: post #122
nothrabannosir wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dug into this and it turns out there's an active, multi year effort underway to solve exactly this, along the exact ways you´d expect, with references to guix and bootstrappable.org etc, making steady progress: https://discourse.haskell.org/t/what-s-needed-to-bootstrap-g... Reading through that thread gives me a very different idea of the state of haskell than I got from reading your comments.

Efforts pop up every once in a while, usually with no results. As I said elsewhere, if they actually pull it off this time then my tone changes to one of willingness from my team and I to put in the work to use these efforts to support deterministic multi-signed builds in stagex. It would make GHC (and pandoc) something we could have in tree which would be awesome. I am just annoyed it seems like such a low priority.

This entire thread, including your original comment, isn’t really about your efforts though. It was about Haskell.

As I said : I read your comments, formed an idea based on that, dug deeper to see for myself, and got a completely different picture.

Whether that is because of how you write or because of how I read I’ll leave for you to decide.

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#125

Post by liveoneggs »

lrvick wrote: post #123
liveoneggs wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

doesn't rust have the same problem? I've known this about haskell for ages and I think it's just the new norm ("trust us, bro")

Not anymore. Real pain in the ass to bootstrap but thanks to mrustc combined with our work in stagex we have an easy to audit path now in a 100% bootstrapped distro. Unfortunately due to no first party support or interest from the Rust team, we have to build through 15+ versions to get to latest and it takes 6+ hours to build with a 20+ core system, but it works. https://codeberg.org/stagex/stagex/src/branch/main/pac…

nice, thanks

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#126

Post by fuhsnn »

lrvick wrote: post #110
pyrale wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it becomes bootstrappable, then of course all the above critique is immediately retracted. So basically you're saying you're just trying to get people to carry water for your project? > because there is still literally no way to compile it from source https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/wikis/building/#buildin... I cannot comprehend how you can get to the conclusion that a compiler that was litterally made so t…

My project has no need of Haskell, but if anyone puts in the work to make haskell compileable from only public source code my team and I will put in the work to reproduce, package, and maintain it for the community for free as we do most other languages. Your link details building GHC with an existing non reproducible GHC compiler binary compiled by a single individual that must be blindly trusted. Full source bootst…

Interested in why you consider Zig's precompiled WASM blob full source bootstrapping, is it because it's shipped by first party?

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#127

Post by lrvick »

fuhsnn wrote: post #126
lrvick wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My project has no need of Haskell, but if anyone puts in the work to make haskell compileable from only public source code my team and I will put in the work to reproduce, package, and maintain it for the community for free as we do most other languages. Your link details building GHC with an existing non reproducible GHC compiler binary compiled by a single individual that must be blindly trusted. Full source bootst…

Interested in why you consider Zig's precompiled WASM blob full source bootstrapping, is it because it's shipped by first party?

I did not package Zig myself. Does that blob make it into final artifacts? If so that is a bug we should swiftly correct.

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#128

Post by tennysont »

lrvick wrote: post #97
gf000 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside some fairly niche projects working on the problem, this is not a priority and most systems have straight binary dependencies.

The normalized lack of care about supply chain integrity is going pretty poorly, as any read of recent headlines indicates. Stagex has a 100% full source bootstrapping, and reproducibility requirement that at least two maintainers must prove and sign for every package. Stagex is also very heavily used and relied on in high value financial and scientific applications where trusting a binary some internet rando compile…

I was under the impression that most supply chain attacks target source code, not binaries, especially for large projects like OpenBSD.

Does StageX audit source code to the same extend that OpenBSD does? If not, then how would you compare the downgrade in security due to less code auditing vs the reassurance of reproducible builds?

Or, how would you compare StageX with Gentoo, in which the entire system is installed from source. Sure, you have to trust your initial installer, but how could I get a StageX system setup without first having access to a computer with some software installed? If we're at the point where we're worried that every Haskell program that has ever been compiled is owned, then I wonder why I should trust any software that might install StageX onto my computer, or the underlying hardware for that matter?

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#129

Post by elbear »

lrvick wrote: post #98
utopiah wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, any link I could read to understand a bit more the situation?

Here is some background on the Haskell situation: https://www.joachim-breitner.de/blog/802-More_thoughts_on_a_... Ada has had even less progress and I am not aware of any writeups. TL;DR: Ada and Haskell need to have compilers implemented a language that has a full source bootstrap path such as C, Go, or Rust that implement just enough features to compile the official compilers.

Just curious, are C, Go and Rust and the only viabile languages for an implementation?

Re: GHC now runs in the browser

#130

Post by drumnerd »

inkyoto wrote: post #89
mananaysiempre wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GHC (the Glasgow Haskell Compiler, after its original host university) is the de facto Haskell compiler and simultaneously the main research vehicle for the language and the neighbouring design space in general. And frankly, while the compiler is awesome and so is the research, the constant churn and seeming inability to settle on what the good programming style and set of features actually is is what eventually turn…

> GHC … is the de facto Haskell compiler and simultaneously the main research vehicle for the language and the neighbouring design space in general. GHC is also, with mounting inevitability, the foremost and most viable candidate to undergo a form of evolution – one that may culminate in the emergence of an autonomous intelligence. This entity, should it arise, would revolve not around emotion nor instinct, but aroun…

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