[bpt/guile.git] / ANNOUNCE

We are pleased to announce the release of Guile 1.7.2.  This is a
'technology preview' for the upcoming Guile 1.8.  It can be found
here:

    ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/guile/guile-1.7.2.tar.gz

Its MD5 checksum is

    7fabb64198993e971f65a27846202388  guile-1.7.2.tar.gz

This version is guaranteed to contain serious bugs, and the publically
visible interfaces will almost certainly change before 1.8 is
released.  The 1.7 releases might be termed "selected snapshots".

Specifically, libguile has not yet been reviewed for thread-safeness.

We are releasing it anyway to start testing the new features, and to
get feedback about how well Guile actually behaves in a multi-threaded
setting.

The shared library major versions have been bumped compared to the 1.6
series, but they will not be bumped on binary incompatible changes
within the 1.7 series.


The NEWS file is quite long.  Here are the most interesting entries:

  Changes since 1.7.1:

  * There is a new way to initalize Guile that allows one to use Guile
    from threads that have not been created by Guile.

  * Mutexes and condition variables are now always fair.  A recursive
    mutex must be requested explicitely.

  * The low-level thread API has been removed.

  * There is a new way to access all kinds of vectors and arrays from
    C that is efficient and thread-safe.

  * The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
    barriers and dynamic states.

See NEWS and the manual for more details.
Commit	Line	Data
68ec3231	1	We are pleased to announce the release of Guile 1.7.2. This is a
7023d642 MV	2	'technology preview' for the upcoming Guile 1.8. It can be found
	3	here:
	4
68ec3231	5	ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/guile/guile-1.7.2.tar.gz
7023d642 MV	6
	7	Its MD5 checksum is
	8
4ef9101c	9	7fabb64198993e971f65a27846202388 guile-1.7.2.tar.gz
cad4775f MV	10
cad4775f MV	11	This version is guaranteed to contain serious bugs, and the publically
7023d642 MV	12	visible interfaces will almost certainly change before 1.8 is
7023d642 MV	13	released. The 1.7 releases might be termed "selected snapshots".
cad4775f	14
68ec3231	15	Specifically, libguile has not yet been reviewed for thread-safeness.
cad4775f	16
68ec3231 MV	17	We are releasing it anyway to start testing the new features, and to
	18	get feedback about how well Guile actually behaves in a multi-threaded
	19	setting.
cad4775f MV	20
	21	The shared library major versions have been bumped compared to the 1.6
	22	series, but they will not be bumped on binary incompatible changes
	23	within the 1.7 series.
	24
	25
68ec3231	26	The NEWS file is quite long. Here are the most interesting entries:
cad4775f	27
68ec3231	28	Changes since 1.7.1:
cad4775f	29
68ec3231 MV	30	* There is a new way to initalize Guile that allows one to use Guile
68ec3231 MV	31	from threads that have not been created by Guile.
cad4775f	32
68ec3231 MV	33	* Mutexes and condition variables are now always fair. A recursive
68ec3231 MV	34	mutex must be requested explicitely.
cad4775f	35
68ec3231	36	* The low-level thread API has been removed.
cad4775f	37
68ec3231 MV	38	* There is a new way to access all kinds of vectors and arrays from
68ec3231 MV	39	C that is efficient and thread-safe.
cad4775f	40
68ec3231 MV	41	* The concept of dynamic roots has been factored into continuation
68ec3231 MV	42	barriers and dynamic states.
cad4775f MV	43
cad4775f MV	44	See NEWS and the manual for more details.