[m-dev.] Packages and uploads.

[Tyson Richard DOWD]

Tyson Richard DOWD wrote:
> 
> I've sent our .lsm file (linux software map) to the lsm people,
> and I've prepared a post to comp.os.linux.announce which is
> below, for general review.

Here's an updated version of the post. I've added a mention of
higher-order in the "About the language" section, and removed
mention of generic I/O in the library (it's already covered well
enough by I/O).

If there are no more problems, I'll try to send this off this afternoon.

=========================================================================

Announcing the release of Mercury 0.7.3.

Mercury is a logic-functional programming language.
The Mercury compiler is GPL-ed software, the library and runtime are
LGPL.

About the language:
	Mercury has the clean semantics and clarity of modern
	functional programming languages, and the expressiveness of
	logic languages.  It has a strong type system, a module system
	(allowing separate compilation), a mode system (which prevents
	data-flow errors), algebraic data types, parametric
	polymorphism, support for higher-order programming, and a
	determinism system -- all of which are aimed at both reducing
	programming errors and providing useful compiler information.

About the implementation:
	The Mercury compiler performs sophisticated optimizations, and
	delivers efficiency close to that of low-level languages such as
	C. Typically, it can achieve between 2-20 times the efficiency
	of Prolog implementations, while still compiling in reasonable
	time.
	It includes:
		- C interface
		- a profiler (call-graph and flat profiles)
		- user's guide, language reference manual,
		  library reference guide
		- termination analysis
		- make-like build environment, automatic dependency
		  calculation
		- a library, implementing input/output, a variety of
		  data structures, and more.
		- type and mode inference
		- some small sample programs
		- full source code
		- much, much more

Where to get it:
	You can get Mercury 0.7.3 from sunsite (or one of its mirrors)
	in the /pub/Linux/Incoming directory. Eventually it will
	probably move to /pub/Linux/devel/lang/mercury.
	The file you're looking for is
		mercury-0.7.3-core.tar.gz

	The home Mercury ftp site, turiel.cs.mu.oz.au, contains
	/pub/mercury/mercury-0.7.3-extras.tar.gz which includes
	interfaces to OpenGL libraries, Tcl/Tk, a CGI library, an ODBC
	interface, and a few other goodies. We provide this archive
	separately because not all of the extras are under the GPL.

More information:
	The Mercury website:
		http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/mercury
	This contains HTML versions of our documentation, contact
	information, benchmarking results, mailing list information,
	release notes, etc.

	If you have any enquires, feel free to contact mercury at cs.mu.oz.au.


The LSM entry follows:

Begin3
Title:          mercury
Version:        0.7.3
Entered-date:   08NOV97
Description:    The Mercury programming language.
                Mercury is a new logic/functional programming language,
                which combines the clarity and expressiveness of
                declarative programming with advanced static analysis
                and error detection features. Its highly optimized
                execution algorithm delivers efficiency far in excess of
                existing logic programming systems, and close to
                conventional programming systems. Mercury addresses the
                problems of large-scale program development, allowing
                modularity, separate compilation, and numerous
                optimization/time trade-offs. 
Keywords:       mercury, programming language, logic, functional, declarative
Author:         mercury at cs.mu.oz.au (The Mercury Team)
Maintained-by:  mercury at cs.mu.oz.au (The Mercury Team)
Primary-site:   sunsite.unc.edu /pub/linux/devel/lang/mercury
		1384 mercury-0.7.3-core.lsm
                5.0MB mercury-0.7.3-core.tar.gz
Original-site:  turiel.cs.mu.oz.au /pub/mercury
                5.0MB mercury-0.7.3-core.tar.gz
Platforms:      i386 (SPARC, MIPS and Alpha possible but untested with
                Linux), gcc 2.6.3 or higher, GNU make 3.69 or higher
Copying-policy: GPL+LGPL
End



-- 
       Tyson Dowd           # 
                            #         Linux versus Windows is a 
     trd at cs.mu.oz.au        #            Win lose situation.
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~trd #