0.9.10.3: Faster function calls via constant symbols

[sbcl.git] / NEWS

diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 855f210..127f97e 100644 (file)
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,9 +1,29 @@
 ;;;; -*- coding: utf-8; -*-
+changes in sbcl-0.9.11 relative to sbcl-0.9.10:
+  * new feature: Unicode character names are now known to the system
+    (through CHAR-NAME and NAME-CHAR).
+  * bug fix: as implied by AMOP, standardized classes no longer have
+    slots named by external symbols of public packages.  (reported by
+    Pascal Costanza)
+  * optimization: calling functions via constant symbols -- as in 
+    (FUNCALL 'FOO) -- is now roughly as efficient as calling them
+    via the function object as in (FUNCALL #'FOO).
+
 changes in sbcl-0.9.10 relative to sbcl-0.9.9:
+  * new feature: new SAVE-LISP-AND-DIE keyword argument :EXECUTABLE can
+    be used for bundling the runtime and the core file into one 
+    executable binary. This feature is not currently supported on all SBCL
+    platforms.  (thanks to James Bielman and NIIMI Satoshi)
+  * new feature: a generational or ephemeral garbage collector is now
+    the default on the PowerPC platform (both Linux and Darwin).  The
+    old Cheney (stop and copy) collector is a build-time option.
+    (thanks to Cyrus Harmon, after Raymond Toy)
   * minor incompatible change: the method by which SBCL finds its
     contributed modules has changed; it no longer relies on symbolic
     links from an $SBCL_HOME/systems directory, but searches directly
     in the subdirectories of $SBCL_HOME.
+  * enhancement: the dynamic heap size on the Linux/PPC platform is
+    markedly larger, even using the older Cheney garbage collector.
   * fixed bug #399: full call to DATA-VECTOR-REF in accesses to
     certain complicated string types.  (reported by Gary King)
   * fixed bug: STRING-TO-OCTETS and OCTETS-TO-STRING did not convert
@@ -15,6 +35,18 @@ changes in sbcl-0.9.10 relative to sbcl-0.9.9:
     applicable non-standard primary or :AROUND method on
     INITIALIZE-INSTANCE or SHARED-INITIALIZE and a non-keyword initarg
     no longer cause unbound variable errors.  (reported by Kevin Reid)
+  * fixed bug: metacircle resolution in cases where methods have slots
+    added before the slots from STANDARD-METHOD.  (reported by Jean
+    Bresson)
+  * fixed bug: the Power PC assembly code for calling into lisp
+    sometimes computed its return address wrongly (depending on the
+    15th bit of the address, fixed at link time).  This used to
+    manifest itself in a segmentation violation while building PCL.
+    (reported by Kevin Rosenberg, Eric Marsden, Lars Brinkhoff and
+    many others over the years)
+  * fixed bug: ROOM no longer reports silly numbers for stack usage if
+    the stack pointer (treated as a signed integer) is negative.
+    (thanks to Peter van Eynde)
 
 changes in sbcl-0.9.9 relative to sbcl-0.9.8:
   * new platform: experimental support for the Windows operating
@@ -70,7 +102,7 @@ changes in sbcl-0.9.8 relative to sbcl-0.9.7:
   * fixed some bugs revealed by Paul Dietz' test suite:
     ** DOCUMENTATION returns NIL instead of "" for method combinations
        that don't have a docstring
-
+\a
 changes in sbcl-0.9.7 relative to sbcl-0.9.6:
   * minor incompatible change: (SETF CLASS-NAME) and (SETF
     GENERIC-FUNCTION-NAME) are no longer generic functions, and