PLNews: Programming Language News

Gilad Bracha has written an article describing the new bytecode verifier that will be released with Java 6.

It covers the rationale behind the new verifier, in addition to discussing the performance and memory consumption benefits it should bring. Community involvement in the development and testing of the new verifier is also requested.

The second part of John Osborn's interview with C# architect Anders Hejlsberg is now available. The first part of the interview was made available on October 17, 2005.

This part of the interview discusses LINQ, comparing it with technologies for embedding SQL within various programming languages. There is some focus on the functional programming capabilities making their way into C#, as well as some discussion regarding upcoming developments. Hejlsberg also suggests that developers take advantage of the C# 2.0 generics and stronger typing, in addition to looking at the 3.0 previews.

It has been announced that Smalltalk Solutions 2006 will be held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, from April 24 until April 26, 2006. It is a conference for "bringing together Smalltalk users, developers, and enthusiasts.

Luke Gorrie has announced the creation of the "Env, man!" blog, which focuses on programming environments.

The October 2005 edition of the Core Java Technologies Newsletter is now available. It covers recent developments in the Java world.

This edition includes various technical articles, an interview with Li Moore of Google, a listing of recently released JSRs, plus more.

PHP 4.4.1 has been released. PHP is a scripting language suitable for embedding within HTML.

This maintenance release updates to the latest version of pcrelib, in addition to fixing a number of bugs and security problems.

It has been announced that the next meeting of the Grand Rapids Ruby Users Group will be held on November 5, 2005.

Objective Caml 3.09.0 has been released. Objective Caml is an ML-derived language offering object-oriented capabilities and other features.

This release includes support for private row types, warnings for local variables that are bound but never used, standard library improvements, plus other changes and bugfixes.

Gambas 1.9.21 has been released. Gambas is a Visual Basic-like language and development environment.

This release includes new LDAP and CORBA components, includes a new Object.Is() static method, and replaces the SCAN instruction with a subroutine, in addition to other changes and bugfixes.

A report detailing the status of the GNU Compiler Collection 4.1 release as of October 27, 2005, is now available.

The number of regressions has been reduced to 149, with 44 still being considered critical. The mainline will reopen on November 11, or when the 100 regression mark is hit, whichever arrives first. The branch is planned for November 18.

It has been announced that the next C# User Group of Greater Boston meeting will be held on November 1, 2005.

Chris Bowen will discuss C# practices to avoid, and how to avoid them.

It has been announced that the next Scheme UK meeting will take place on December 7, 2005.

Shriram Krishnamurthi will be discussing Margrave, "a software suite for analyzing role-based access-control policies," which is implemented in PLT Scheme.

RetroForth 8.2.3 has been released. RetroForth is a small, portable, open-source Forth implementation.

This release adds an "import" function, as well as a floppy driver for the native port.

Wyjec 1.0 beta 4 has been released. Wyjec is an embeddable, general purpose expression language with a prefix notation, currently implemented in Java.

This release includes new standard functions, a new "apphelpers" package, plus other changes and bugfixes.

phc 0.1 has been released. It is a PHP compiler which aims to emit x86 assembly.

This initial release does not yet compile PHP code. It does, however, support the parsing of PHP code, and can create an AST.

NetCOBOL for Windows 8.0 has been released. Formerly called Fujitsu COBOL, it is a Windows-based COBOL development environment.

This release includes support for WOW64, new integer numeric data types, the addition of some common Micro Focus COBOL features, more detailed compiler listings, parameter mismatch checking, plus other improvements.

The 2005 London Perl Workshop has been announced, and has put out a call for papers. It aims to "allow Perl beginners to learn from long-standing members of the community, while also giving the experts a chance to make easy tasks seem trivial, and hard tasks seem easy." The workshop will take place on November 26, 2005.

Mark Jason will be discussing Higher Order Perl.

It has been announced that final release versions of Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0 are now available on MSDN for MSDN subscribers.

Steel Bank Common Lisp 0.9.6 has been released. It is a portable, open-source ANSI Common Lisp implementation.

This release includes a number of bugfixes, support on MIPS/Linux for saving cores with foreign code loaded, support for specifying the alignment of alien structure fields, plus other changes.

LispWorks Personal Edition 4.4.6 has been released. LispWorks is a Common Lisp implementation, supporting Mac OS X, Linux, Windows and UNIX.

This release includes bugfixes, plus support for a larger heap.

SML/NJ 110.56 has been released. SML/NJ is a portable, optimizing Standard ML implementation.

This release includes improved code generation for polymorphic equality on datatypes, an x86 register allocator bugfix, code cleanups, plus other changes.

It has been announced that the Pittsburgh Perl Mongers will hold on a meeting on October 29, 2005. Damian Conway will be the presenter.

A summary of Perl 6 developments between October 10 and October 18, 2005 is now available.

The summary covers topics such as the inheritance of class methods, translating .NET bytecode into PIR, plus more.

The October 26, 2005 Python-URL! is now available. It lists recent developments in the Python world.

This edition covers topics such as the upcoming PyCon 2006 submission deadline, managing Python installations on multiple hosts, and more.

SmartEiffel 2.2 beta 5 has been released. SmartEiffel is a portable, open-source Eiffel implementation.

This beta release includes improved error messages, new COLLECTION and DICTIONARY features, plus other changes.