+ * changed .fasl file version number, in part to add type codes for
+ new array subtypes UNSIGNED-BYTE 7, 15, 29, and 31 mandated by
+ obscure ANSI requirements
+
+changes in sbcl-0.8.4 relative to sbcl-0.8.3:
+ * fixed compiler performance when processing loops with a step >1;
+ * bug fix: DOCUMENTATION now retrieves generic function
+ documentation. Also, DOCUMENTATION and (SETF DOCUMENTATION)
+ support has been systematized, and now supports the methods
+ specified by ANSI, along with a default method and a method for
+ slot documentation. (reported by Nathan Froyd)
+ * bug fix: effective methods associated with a generic function are
+ no longer cached over a change of that generic function's method
+ combination. (reported by Andreas Fuchs)
+ * bug fix: RUN-PROGRAM now does not fail if some element in $PATH
+ names a non-existent directory. (thanks to Andreas Fuchs)
+ * bug fix: ROUND and TRUNCATE could, under certain circumstances on
+ the PPC platform, lead to stack corruption; this has been fixed.
+ (reported by Rainer Joswig)
+ * bug fix: ASH on an (UNSIGNED-BYTE 32) with a shift of -32 or lower
+ no longer ever returns 1 instead of 0. (thanks to Lars Brinkhoff)
+ * optimization: restored some effective method precomputation in
+ CLOS (turned off by an ANSI fix in sbcl-0.8.3); the amount of
+ precomputation is now tunable.
+ * optimization: compiler-internal data structure use has been
+ reviewed, and changes have been made that should improve the
+ performance of the compiler by about 20%.
+ * optimization: performance of FILL (and :INITIAL-ELEMENT) on
+ simple-base-strings and simple-bit-vectors is improved.
+ * microoptimization: the compiler is better able to make use of the
+ x86 LEA instruction for multiplication by constants.
+ * bug fix: in some situations compiler did not report usage of
+ generic arithmetic in (SPEED 3) policy.
+ * fixed some bugs revealed by Paul Dietz' test suite:
+ ** the RETURN clause in LOOP is now equivalent to DO (RETURN ...).
+ ** ROUND and FROUND now give the right answer when given very
+ small float arguments.
+ ** (FLOAT X) for X of type DOUBLE-FLOAT now returns X in all
+ circumstances.
+ ** optimizer for (EXPT X 0) did not work for X not of type FLOAT.
+ ** (GCD 0 <negative-integer>) returned <negative-integer>.
+ ** LCM should return a non-negative integer.