0.pre7.45:

[sbcl.git] / NEWS

diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index e361a7d..50ddaf0 100644 (file)
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -815,6 +815,41 @@ changes in sbcl-0.6.13 relative to sbcl-0.6.12:
 changes in sbcl-0.7.0 relative to sbcl-0.6.13:
 * incompatible change: The default fasl file extension has changed
   to ".fasl", for all architectures. (No longer ".x86f" and ".axpf".) 
 changes in sbcl-0.7.0 relative to sbcl-0.6.13:
 * incompatible change: The default fasl file extension has changed
   to ".fasl", for all architectures. (No longer ".x86f" and ".axpf".) 

+* The EVAL-WHEN code has been rewritten to be ANSI-compliant, and
+  various related bugs (IR1-1, IR1-2, IR1-3, IR1-3a) have gone away.
+  Since the code is newer, there might still be some new bugs
+  (though not as many as before Martin Atzmueller's fixes:-). But 
+  hopefully any remaining bugs will be simpler, less fundamental,
+  and more fixable then the bugs in the old IR1 interpreter code.
+* The IR1 interpreter, byte compiler, and byte interpreter are gone.
+  It's long been my plan to remove the IR1 interpreter while making
+  EVAL-WHEN ANSI-compliant. It turned out that a cascade of changes
+  caused by EVAL-WHEN ANSIness would have required fairly simple
+  changes to the byte compiler; except they turned out to be quite
+  difficult. This, plus the new familiarity with the byte compiler
+  in general that I picked up as I worked on this specific problem,
+  reduced my opinion of its maintainability enough that I deleted it 
+  instead of trying to fix it. 
+* The compiler, especially the IR1 phase of the compiler, has been
+  tweaked somewhat to support the new implementation of DEFUN and
+  of the static linking hack used for cold init. In particular,
+  the property of "is externally visible" is now orthogonal to
+  the property of "is optimized/specialized for being called
+  at LOAD time, with no arguments and no argument checking".
+  The old FUNCTIONAL-KIND=:TOP-LEVEL type code which
+  conflated these two properties has been replaced with the
+  FUNCTIONAL-HAS-EXTERNAL-REFERENCES-P flag. This has minor
+  beneficial consequences for the logic of #'CL:COMPILE and other
+  things. Like the rewrite of EVAL, it has also quite possibly 
+  introduced some new bugs, but since the new logic is simpler and
+  more orthogonal, hopefully it will be easier to clean up bugs
+  in the new code than it was in the old code.
+* The rewritten compiler is still a little unsteady on its feet.
+  In particular, the debugging information it produces is sometimes
+  broken, and the support for inlining FOO when you
+  (DECLAIM (INLINE FOO)) then do (DEFUN FOO ..) in a non-null
+  lexical environment has been temporarily weakened (because the
+  old clever code depended on correct debugging information).

 * There are new compiler optimizations for various functions: FIND,
   POSITION, FIND-IF, POSITION-IF, FILL, COERCE, TRUNCATE, FLOOR, and
   CEILING. Mostly these should be transparent, but there's one 
 * There are new compiler optimizations for various functions: FIND,
   POSITION, FIND-IF, POSITION-IF, FILL, COERCE, TRUNCATE, FLOOR, and
   CEILING. Mostly these should be transparent, but there's one 

@@ -825,26 +860,15 @@ changes in sbcl-0.7.0 relative to sbcl-0.6.13:
   it will issue WARNINGs about the type mismatches. It's not clear
   how to make the compiler smart enough to fix this in general, but
   a workaround is given in the entry for 117 in the BUGS file.
   it will issue WARNINGs about the type mismatches. It's not clear
   how to make the compiler smart enough to fix this in general, but
   a workaround is given in the entry for 117 in the BUGS file.

-* The doc/cmucl/ directory, containing old CMU CL documentation,
-  is no longer part of the base system. The files which used to 
-  be in the doc/cmucl/ directory are now available as
-    <ftp://sbcl.sourceforge.net/pub/sbcl/cmucl-docs.tar.bz2>.
-* The default value of *BYTES-CONSED-BETWEEN-GCS* has been 
-  doubled, to 4 million. (If your application spends a lot of time
-  GCing and you have a lot of RAM, you might want to experiment with
-  increasing it even more.)
-* The EVAL and EVAL-WHEN code has been largely rewritten, and the
-  old CMU CL "IR1 interpreter" has gone away. The new interpreter
-  is probably slower and harder to debug than the old one, but
-  it's much simpler (several thousand lines of source code simpler)
-  and considerably more ANSI-compliant. Bugs
-    ?? IR1-3 and
-    ?? IR1-3a
-  have been fixed. Since the code is newer, there might still be
-  some new bugs (though not as many as before Martin Atzmueller's
-  fixes:-). But hopefully any remaining bugs will be simpler, less
-  fundamental, and more fixable then the bugs in the old IR1
-  interpreter code.
+* (Because of the interaction between the two previous items --
+  occasional inlining problems and new inline expansions -- the
+  new FIND, POSITION, FIND-IF, and POSITION-IF code won't really
+  kick in properly until debugging information is straightened out
+  in some future version.)
+* DEFSTRUCT and DEFCLASS have been substantially updated to take
+  advantage of the new EVAL-WHEN stuff and to clean them up in 
+  general, and they are now more ANSI-compliant in a number of
+  ways. Martin Atzmueller is responsible for a lot of this.

 * A bug in LOOP operations on hash tables has been fixed, thanks
   to a bug report and patch from Alexey Dejneka.
 * PPRINT-LOGICAL-BLOCK now copies the *PRINT-LINES* value on entry
 * A bug in LOOP operations on hash tables has been fixed, thanks
   to a bug report and patch from Alexey Dejneka.
 * PPRINT-LOGICAL-BLOCK now copies the *PRINT-LINES* value on entry

@@ -857,16 +881,52 @@ changes in sbcl-0.7.0 relative to sbcl-0.6.13:
              (print (aref possiblybigthings i) stream)))))
   should truncate the logical block only at 50 lines, instead of 
   often truncating it at 8 lines.
              (print (aref possiblybigthings i) stream)))))
   should truncate the logical block only at 50 lines, instead of 
   often truncating it at 8 lines.

+* Martin Atzmueller fixed several other bugs:
+  ** correct ERROR type for various file operations
+  ** removing dead code
+* Alexey Dejneka fixed many bugs:
+  ** misbehavior of WRITE-STRING/WRITE-LINE
+  ** LOOP over keys of a hash table, LOOP bugs 49b and 81 and 103, and
+     several other LOOP problems as well
+  ** DIRECTORY when similar filenames are present
+  ** DEFGENERIC with :METHOD options
+  ** bug 126, in (MAKE-STRING N :INITIAL-ELEMENT #\SPACE))
+  ** bug in the optimization of ARRAY-ELEMENT-TYPE
+  He also pointed out some bogus old entries in BUGS.
+?? Old operator names in the style DEF-FOO are now deprecated in favor
+  of new corresponding names DEFINE-FOO, for consistency with the
+  naming convention used in the ANSI standard). This mostly affects
+  internal symbols, but a few external symbols like
+  SB-ALIEN:DEF-ALIEN-FUNCTION are also affected.

 * :SB-CONSTRAIN-FLOAT-TYPE, :SB-PROPAGATE-FLOAT-TYPE, and
   :SB-PROPAGATE-FUN-TYPE are no longer considered to be optional
   features. Instead, the code that they used to control is always
   built into the system.
 * :SB-CONSTRAIN-FLOAT-TYPE, :SB-PROPAGATE-FLOAT-TYPE, and
   :SB-PROPAGATE-FUN-TYPE are no longer considered to be optional
   features. Instead, the code that they used to control is always
   built into the system.

-* lots of tidying up internally: renaming things so that names are
-  more systematic and consistent, converting C macros to inline
+* The default value of *BYTES-CONSED-BETWEEN-GCS* has been 
+  doubled, to 4 million. (If your application spends a lot of time
+  GCing and you have a lot of RAM, you might want to experiment with
+  increasing it even more.)
+* minor incompatible change: DEFINE-ALIEN-FUNCTION (also known by 
+  the old deprecated name DEF-ALIEN-FUNCTION) now does DECLAIM FTYPE
+  for the defined function, since declaiming return types involving
+  aliens is (1) annoyingly messy to do by hand and (2) vital 
+  to efficient compilation of code which calls such functions (and
+  since people writing calls-to-C code aren't likely to be bothered
+  by implicit assumptions of static typing).
+* The interpreter, EVAL, has been rewritten. Now it calls the
+  native compiler for the difficult cases, where it used to call
+  the old specialized IR1 interpreter code. 
+* The doc/cmucl/ directory, containing old CMU CL documentation,
+  is no longer part of the base system. SourceForge has shut down
+  its anonymous FTP service, and with it my original plan for
+  distributing them separately. For now, if you need them you can
+  download an old sbcl source release and get them from there.
+* lots of other tidying up internally: renaming things so that names
+  are more systematic and consistent, converting C macros to inline

   functions, systematizing indentation, making symbol packaging
   more logical, and so forth
   functions, systematizing indentation, making symbol packaging
   more logical, and so forth

-* The fasl file version number changed again, for any number of
-  good reasons.
+* The fasl file version number changed again, for about a dozen
+  reasons, some of which are apparent above.

 
 planned incompatible changes in 0.7.x:
 * The debugger prompt sequence now goes "5]", "5[2]", "5[3]", etc.
 
 planned incompatible changes in 0.7.x:
 * The debugger prompt sequence now goes "5]", "5[2]", "5[3]", etc.