[m-rev.] update .NET web page

[Fergus Henderson]

Estimated hours taken: 0.5
Branches: main

w3/include/dotnet.inc:
	Update to reflect recent improvements to the .NET back-end.

Workspace: /home/ceres/fjh/mercury
Index: w3/include/dotnet.inc
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/mercury1/repository/w3/include/dotnet.inc,v
retrieving revision 1.5
diff -u -d -r1.5 dotnet.inc
--- w3/include/dotnet.inc	8 Apr 2001 08:57:05 -0000	1.5
+++ w3/include/dotnet.inc	25 Sep 2003 06:34:45 -0000
@@ -6,39 +6,41 @@
 the <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/">Microsoft .NET platform</a>.
 <p>
 
-Thanks to Microsoft's generous and ongoing support, both financial
+Thanks to Microsoft's generous support, both financial
 and otherwise, we've been able to port Mercury to Microsoft's new
 .NET system.  There's a new back-end for the Mercury compiler,
 based on the `--high-level-code' back-end, that compiles to IL, the
 Microsoft .NET Intermediate Language.
 <p>
 
-This back-end is enabled using the new `--target il' option
-(or just `--il' for short), or the `ilc' grade.
+This back-end is enabled using the new `il' grade.
 <p>
 
 This is still work in progress.
-Compiler support for this new back-end is mostly complete,
-but large parts of the standard library are still not yet
-implemented for this new port.
 <p>
 
 <h3> Status </h3>
 
+The <a href="<? echo $root ?>/download/rotd.html">release-of-the-day releases</a>
+of the Mercury compiler include support for generating code for .NET.
+They also include a port of most of the Mercury standard library and runtime
+to .NET.
+<p>
+
 The <a href="<? echo $root ?>/download/release.html">current release</a>
-of the Mercury compiler includes preliminary support for generating code
-for .NET.
-It also includes a partial port of the Mercury library and runtime to .NET.
+also includes some support for the .NET backend, but coverage
+of the Mercury standard library for .NET is much improved in the
+release-of-the-day releases, so if you want to use the .NET back-end,
+we recommend that you use a release-of-the-day release rather than the
+official current release.
+<p>
 
 <h4> The bad news </h4>
 
-At this point it is still an alpha-quality release; it's hard to install,
-there are still many parts of the standard library which are not yet
+At this point it is still a beta-quality release; it's hard to install,
+there are still some parts of the standard library which are not yet
 implemented for this port, it's not well tested, not yet efficient,
-and undergoing continual change in our development snapshots (e.g. the
-data representation used in the current release is inefficient and will
-be changed, the current name mangling approach is inconvenient and will
-be changed, etc.)
+and may be subject to change in future releases.
 
 <h4> The good news </h4>
 

-- 
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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