F# in dotnet 8?

[nojaf]

Hello,

I would like to know what code is present in the dotnet 8 nightlies.

When something is merged to main, I always very much struggle to know when this will finally be available in an SDK.
What goes to the next 7.0.200, 7.0.300, 8.0.100?

I downloaded the 8.0.100-alpha.1.23063.11 today and I can't really say what the last commit was.
It looks recent, but I just can't tell for sure. Maybe I'm missing something here.

Anyway, I think others might have this problem as well. I know @edgarfgp got excited when the 7.0.102 was released, hoping that #13839 would be available, but it was not the case.

Lastly, I would very much like to have an SDK with the code from main in it, if that does not already exist. Some more regression testing could be done. Things like #14598 would surface a lot quicker, instead of them being detected by accident in a single code-base.

Besides regressions, I would like to set something up something that tests out the results of certain flags like #14494. Having an SDK with the latest main could make that a lot easier. The thing I have in mind is a GitHub Action, that downloads the latest nightly, clones a couple of repositories and builds them. Running that on a weekly basis would boost confidence in new features and the overall next iteration of the compiler.

[kerams]

• Download https://aka.ms/dotnet/8.0.1xx/daily/productCommit-win-x64.txt
• Copy the commit hash for sdk_commit
• Open https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/blob/{SDK_COMMIT_FROM_ABOVE}/eng/Version.Details.xml
• Copy the commit hash for <Dependency Name="Microsoft.FSharp.Compiler"
• Open https://github.com/dotnet/fsharp/commit/{FSHARP_COMMIT_FROM_ABOVE}

That gets you the last F# commit included in the .NET 8 dailies. You can see that it's ~2 weeks behind the HEAD in main, since changes take some time to bubble up through multiple repos.

When something is merged to main, I always very much struggle to know when this will finally be available in an SDK.
What goes to the next 7.0.200, 7.0.300, 8.0.100

I reckon that unless a bug fix is manually cherry picked and merged into a release branch, commits go towards the next major version only.

As for VS tooling, changes tend to land in a preview around 1 or 2 months after having been merged.

[vzarytovskii]

@baronfel may have more info about how .NET 8 insertions work

[nojaf]

Thanks @kerams! Does this mean something needs to go to dev17.5 before it goes into dotnet 8?
If that is the case, can't this be hooked up to main instead?

[vzarytovskii]

@baronfel where does 17.6 channel flow in? 7.0.300?

[kerams]

Interesting, I expected the source of the flow to main would always match the latest F# release branch.

[baronfel]

Yes, which I believe has just been created on the SDK.

SDK main is almost always 'next major version'. The only time this isn't the case is around September when we make the 'release/next major version' branch for the RCs and eventually the stables to branch off from.

[baronfel]

@kerams the blocker here is the release/cadence difference between the fsharp and SDK teams I think.

I think fsharp is very focused on 'next VS release', which is why main doesn't go anywhere in particular and specific release branches are used to cherry pick specific changes from main for those releases.

SDK has both a 'next SDK feature band' (same cadence as VS Release) focus but it crucially has a 'next major SDK version' focus, which I think isn't so much a thing in this repo.

[baronfel]

Note that I'm not trying to make a value judgement or anything, just attempting to describe the high level difference in approach

[edgarfgp]

From contributor point of view. Having to wait for several months (in some cases) is a little discorauging and also the way to setup the nightly net8 builds is long tedious and confusing. I appreciate all of this has a lot of complexity so I not compalining just giving my observations :)

[nojaf]

Hi @vzarytovskii, the latest commit to the nightlies it e391694 for some time now.
Can release/dev17.6 be hooked to the nightlies, please?

[vzarytovskii]

The insertions into the SDK are coming from the 17.6 channel, which is populated by fsharp builds from the 17.6 branch. Both these and 17.5 builds end up in the dotnet-tools feed https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/blob/main/NuGet.config#L27.

I see the latest build was a little after midnight PST.

Thanks, Matt! @nojaf can you please check said feed and see if the packages are there (I'm on vacation this and next week, and won't have access to my laptop until Monday).

[nojaf]

Ok, there are two things here:

1. When following the steps @kerams provided, I end up in e391694 for some time now. This leads me to believe 17.5 is still wired to the dotnet 8 nightlies and not 17.6.
2. I was more talking about the public NuGet feed in terms of the FCS package.

[vzarytovskii]

I don't know what ends up in 8, probability @baronfel can help here?

Regarding public versions - for now they're tied to SDK releases, we'll need to think how shall we publish previews more often.

[baronfel]

Right now, anything that flows to dotnet/sdk main would be part of .NET 8. Currently the 17.6 branch from this repo is flowing to main.

I can confirm that nightlies of FCS are being pushed to the dotnet-tools feed, the current versioning scheme is 43.7.300-preview.xxxx. That matches with the idea that 17.6 versions are flowing there.

One thing I'm not sure of is how/if packages from the main branch of dotnet/fsharp end up in the dotnet-tools feed at all (or otherwise in any end-user-consumable form). Right now there's no channel/branch for 'things that will never end up in .NET 7, only in .NET 8' for this repo, as far as I can tell.

[vzarytovskii]

Right now, anything that flows to dotnet/sdk main would be part of .NET 8. Currently the 17.6 branch from this repo is flowing to main.

I can confirm that nightlies of FCS are being pushed to the dotnet-tools feed, the current versioning scheme is 43.7.300-preview.xxxx. That matches with the idea that 17.6 versions are flowing there.

One thing I'm not sure of is how/if packages from the main branch of dotnet/fsharp end up in the dotnet-tools feed at all (or otherwise in any end-user-consumable form). Right now there's no channel/branch for 'things that will never end up in .NET 7, only in .NET 8' for this repo, as far as I can tell.

Thanks. F# main is not flowing anywhere right now, or rather not inserted, so I don't think packages are even published anywhere. Also, versioning scheme in main is usually behind latest release branch.

[Xyncgas]

What's coming in .net 8