[m-rev.] for review: update RELEASE_NOTES etc. for 0.11
Fergus Henderson
fjh at cs.mu.OZ.AU
Sun Oct 13 05:18:46 AEST 2002
Estimated hours taken: 3
Branches: main
NEWS:
RELEASE_NOTES:
WORK_IN_PROGRESS:
BUGS:
Update in preparation for the next release.
README.BSDI:
Delete. The contents of this file was mainly a very old patch
(against Mercury 0.3!) which would no longer apply correctly anyway,
so it was doing more harm than good.
Workspace: /home/ceres/fjh/mercury
Index: BUGS
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/mercury1/repository/mercury/BUGS,v
retrieving revision 1.14
diff -u -d -r1.14 BUGS
--- BUGS 21 Apr 2002 04:21:23 -0000 1.14
+++ BUGS 9 Oct 2002 10:21:08 -0000
@@ -63,8 +63,8 @@
the high-level C back-end.
* Use `asm_jump.*' compilation grades instead of `asm_fast.*'
grades. Note that `asm_jump.*' grades are not usually installed.
-* Try a newer version of GCC. Avoid GCC version 2.96 (distributed by
- Red Hat) and any other unofficial releases of GCC.
+* Try a newer version of GCC. Avoid GCC version 2.96 (distributed by
+ Red Hat) and 3.0.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: bug report - Inf and NaN
Index: NEWS
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/mercury1/repository/mercury/NEWS,v
retrieving revision 1.269
diff -u -d -r1.269 NEWS
--- NEWS 26 Sep 2002 06:18:33 -0000 1.269
+++ NEWS 9 Oct 2002 11:03:17 -0000
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
-NEWS since Mercury release 0.10.1:
-----------------------------------
+NEWS for Mercury release 0.11:
+------------------------------
HIGHLIGHTS
==========
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
Numerous minor improvements to the Mercury standard library.
+A new testing tool in the extras distribution.
DETAILED LISTING
================
@@ -282,6 +283,9 @@
distinct random numbers that can be generated.
Changes to the extras distribution:
+
+* There's a new testing tool called "quickcheck", which is similar to
+ Haskell's "QuickCheck". See quickcheck/tutes/index.html.
* The interface to Moose has been changed in a non-backwards compatible
way to support user-defined modes for the parser state and integrate
Index: README.BSDI
===================================================================
RCS file: README.BSDI
diff -N README.BSDI
--- README.BSDI 26 Feb 1997 08:49:28 -0000 1.2
+++ /dev/null 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0000
@@ -1,33 +0,0 @@
-
-When porting Mercury to a BSDI BSD/386 1.1 system,
-I had problems with `ar' not handling long filenames.
-(The error message was "ar: libmercury.a: invalid file type".)
-If you get a similar error, try the following patch.
-
---- library/Mmakefile Sat Jul 15 14:54:49 1995
-+++ /home/mulga/pgrad/fjh/mercury/src/mercury-0.3/library/Mmakefile Mon Sep 4 04:13:18 1995
-@@ -109,7 +109,10 @@
- libmercury : libmercury.a libmercury.$(SO) library.init
-
- libmercury.a : $(library.os)
-- ar cr libmercury.a $(library.os)
-+ # ar cr libmercury.a $(library.os)
-+ -ln -s mercury_builtin.o m_builtin.o
-+ ar cr libmercury.a \
-+ `echo $(library.os) | sed 's/mercury_builtin/m_builtin/'`
- $(RANLIB) libmercury.a
-
- libmercury.so : $(library.pic_os)
---- boehm_gc/Makefile Sun Apr 2 19:11:25 1995
-+++ /home/mulga/pgrad/fjh/mercury/src/mercury-0.3/boehm_gc/Makefile Sun Jan 1 01:01:29 1995
-@@ -138,7 +138,9 @@
- rm -f on_sparc_sunos5
- ./if_mach SPARC SUNOS5 touch on_sparc_sunos5
- ./if_mach SPARC SUNOS5 $(AR) rus gc.a $(OBJS) dyn_load.o
-- ./if_not_there on_sparc_sunos5 $(AR) ru gc.a $(OBJS) dyn_load.o
-+ -ln -s solaris_threads.o s_threads.o
-+ ./if_not_there on_sparc_sunos5 $(AR) ru gc.a \
-+ `echo $(OBJS) | sed 's/solaris_threads/s_threads/'` dyn_load.o
- ./if_not_there on_sparc_sunos5 $(RANLIB) gc.a || cat /dev/null
- # ignore ranlib failure; that usually means it doesn't exist, and isn't needed
-
Index: RELEASE_NOTES
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/mercury1/repository/mercury/RELEASE_NOTES,v
retrieving revision 1.29
diff -u -d -r1.29 RELEASE_NOTES
--- RELEASE_NOTES 31 May 2001 02:08:41 -0000 1.29
+++ RELEASE_NOTES 9 Oct 2002 10:16:57 -0000
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
-We are pleased to announce the release of version 0.10 of the Mercury system.
+We are pleased to announce the release of version 0.11 of the Mercury system.
-Mercury is a new general-purpose programming language, designed and
+Mercury is a modern general-purpose programming language, designed and
implemented by a small group of researchers at the University of
Melbourne, Australia. Mercury is based on the paradigm of purely
declarative programming, and was designed to be useful for the
@@ -141,16 +141,22 @@
systems known to us. However, the system does not need these
extensions, and will work in their absence.
-The current Mercury system has been tested extensively on Solaris 2.x,
-OSF/1.1, and Linux, and has in the past been known to run on IRIX 5.x,
+The current Mercury system has been tested on Linux (x86),
+Linux (Alpha), Solaris 2.7 (SPARC), Solaris 2.8 (x86),
+Compaq Tru64 Unix (Alpha), MacOS X (PowerPC), and Windows (x86).
+For Windows, we have tested this release only on Windows 2000,
+but it should also run fine on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, and XP.
+
+Mercury has in the past been known to run on Digital Unix, OSF1, IRIX 5.x,
Ultrix 4.3, BSDI 1.1, AIX, and HPUX; it should run without too many
-changes on other Unix variants as well. It also runs on Windows 95
-and Windows NT, using the Cygwin library. If you do encounter any
+changes on other Unix variants as well. If you do encounter any
problems, please report them to <mercury-bugs at cs.mu.oz.au> (see the
BUGS file).
We recommend that you use gcc as the C compiler, preferably gcc
-version 2.95.2 or later. If you're using gcc, you will need at least
+version 2.95.2 or later. But do not use gcc version 2.96 or 3.0;
+those versions have bugs which cause trouble for Mercury.
+If you're using gcc, you will need at least
version 2.7.2 or higher, except on Solaris, where you need version
2.95 or higher. You will also need GNU make version 3.69 or higher.
@@ -164,7 +170,7 @@
o the runtime system (written in C)
o Hans Boehm's conservative garbage collector for C
o a debugger
- o a profiler
+ o some profilers
o some utility programs, including a make front-end for Mercury
with automatic dependency recomputation
o the Mercury language reference manual
@@ -197,6 +203,7 @@
o two (!) curses bindings, one more complete than the other
o a general purpose lexer
o Moose, a parser generator for Mercury.
+ o quickcheck, an autotesting tool similar to Haskell's QuickCheck.
The "mercury-tests" distribution contains a test suite.
Index: WORK_IN_PROGRESS
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/mercury1/repository/mercury/WORK_IN_PROGRESS,v
retrieving revision 1.17
diff -u -d -r1.17 WORK_IN_PROGRESS
--- WORK_IN_PROGRESS 24 May 2001 06:06:46 -0000 1.17
+++ WORK_IN_PROGRESS 9 Oct 2002 10:39:38 -0000
@@ -12,10 +12,13 @@
* There is a `--target asm' option, which generates assembler by
interfacing directly with the GCC back-end, rather than going via C.
+ See <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/mercury/download/gcc-backend.html>.
-* Thread-safe engine.
+* There is a `--target java' option, which generates Java.
-* Independent AND-parallelism.
+* Thread-safe engine (the `.par' grades).
+
+* Independent AND-parallelism (the `&' parallel conjunction operator).
* We have added support for dynamic link libraries (DLLs) on Windows.
This is not yet enabled by default because it has not yet been tested
@@ -27,9 +30,8 @@
However, these opportunities are not exploited yet.
* There is a new garbage collector that does accurate garbage
- collection (.agc grade). It is currently limited to deterministic
- code, and needs a great deal of tuning and optimization. It also
- needs testing.
+ collection (hlc.agc grade). See the comments in
+ compiler/ml_elim_nested.m and the paper on our web page for more details.
* Mercury is now the official programming language for Melbourne Uni's
"Aditi" deductive database system. The Mercury compiler includes
@@ -40,9 +42,6 @@
included in the formatted versions of the reference manual,
only in the TexInfo source code.)
-* Converting procedures to tail-recursive form via automatic
- accumulator introduction (--introduce-accumulators).
-
* The Mercury debugger (mdb) now includes some support for declarative
debugging.
@@ -55,22 +54,31 @@
code has not yet been committed and thus is not part of the standard
distribution.
-* A bytecode interpreter, for use with the `--generate-bytecode' option.
-
-* A `--target java' option, which generates Java.
+* A new implementation of the mode system using constraints.
+ This is on the "mode-constraints" branch of our CVS repository.
* Support for aliasing in the mode system.
+ This is on the "alias" branch of our CVS repository.
* Support for automatic structure reuse (reusing old data
structures that are no longer live, rather than allocating
new memory on the heap) and compile time garbage collection
+ This is on the "reuse" branch of our CVS repository.
-* Sequence quantification (see the description in
- http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/research/mercury/information/reports/minutes_15_12_00.html).
+
+Work not in progress
+--------------------
+
+The compiler also contains some code for the following features,
+but work on them has stopped, since finishing them off would be
+quite a bit more work, and our current priorities lie elsewhere.
+Still, these could make interesting and worthwhile projects
+if someone has the time for it.
* A SOAP interface.
-* A QuickCheck-style module for software testing.
+* A bytecode interpreter, for use with the `--generate-bytecode' option.
-* Improvements to the debugger's pretty-printer.
+* Sequence quantification (see the description in
+ <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/research/mercury/information/reports/minutes_15_12_00.html>).
--
Fergus Henderson <fjh at cs.mu.oz.au> | "I have always known that the pursuit
The University of Melbourne | of excellence is a lethal habit"
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh> | -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
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