PLNews: Programming Language News

A short report detailing the status of the upcoming 1.0 release of Io is now available. Io is an embeddable, prototype-based language drawing from Smalltalk, Self, NewtonScript, Act1, Lisp and Lua.

A 1.0 prerelease will be made available tomorrow, with the final 1.0 release being delayed until the end of January. Major work to be done includes documentation updates, completion of the move to Io parser, and persistence.

IronPython 1.0 Beta 1 has been released. IronPython is an implementation of Python running on .NET.

This release includes: a new exception system, memory leak fixes, a refactoring of the source code layout, CPython compatibility improvements, plus other changes and bugfixes.

Digital Mars D 0.142 has been released. D is a general-purpose language designed as a successor to C++, offering features such as design by contract, garbage collection, first class arrays, closures, templates, and more.

This release includes D interface file support, bugfixes, and other changes.

It has been announced that the next meeting of the Phoenix Ruby Users Group will be held on January 9, 2006. The focus will be on getting acquainted with the group members, as well as creating Ruby on Rails applications.

Axiomatic Multi-Platform C 1.3.6 has been released. It is a C compiler which emits Java bytecode.

This release improves the COMPILE utility, in addition to bugfixes.

Liberty BASIC v4.03 Release Candidate 1 has been released. It is a BASIC implementation for Windows.

Guy L. Steele, Jr., a co-creator of Scheme, has written an article entitled "Thoughts on Language Design: New challenges require new solutions".

He starts by recounting the debate that surrounded the goto statement in the 1960s and 1970s. He then proceeds to suggest that we may need future languages that "better support multiple threads of control and deal with the consequences of unordered actions." There is some discussion of languages where parallelism is the default, such as for control structures. Finally there is some focus on the actual presentation of source code, and the possibility of using Unicode to make languages easier to read and write.

The December 4 to December 10 and the December 11 to December 17, 2005 editions of The Weekly Squeak are now available. The Weekly Squeak lists recent developments in the Squeak community. Squeak is a portable, open-source Smalltalk implementation.

The Dec. 4 to Dec. 10 edition covers the November team reports, SqueakLight, and other topics. It also includes an interview with Cees De Groot.

The Dec. 11 to Dec. 17 edition covers the new integration testing system, Seaside, and more.

The December 27, 2005 edition of the Python-URL! is now available. It lists recent developments in the Python world.

This edition covers topics such as: constraining the time of a function call, Python creator Guido van Rossum joining Google, and more.

The December 19 to December 25, 2005 edition of the Ruby Weekly News is now available. It summarizes recent discussion on the Ruby ruby-talk mailing list and the comp.lang.ruby newsgroup.

This edition covers topics such as: the RubyPlanet.NET blog aggregator, implementing unfold, the release of Ruby 1.8.4, recent Ruby-related software releases, plus more.

Steel Bank Common Lisp 0.9.8 has been released. SBCL is a portable, open-source ANSI Common Lisp implementation.

This release includes a faster floating-point SQRT on x86-64, plus a number of bugfixes and other changes.

SWI-Prolog 5.6.0 has been released. SWI-Prolog is a portable, open-source Prolog implementation.

This release includes: Unicode support, support for unbounded integer and rational arithmetic, CHR enhancements, plus other changes.

Bill Bradford has announced his lispmachine.net website. It is a list of Lisp-related resources, including links to implementations, online books and documentation, movies, and other relevant information.

Suggestions for other additions, improvements, and changes are requested.

Hashell 0.011a has been released. Hashell allows Haskell to be used a shell programming language.

4tH 3.4f-pre1 has been released. 4tH is a portable, open-source Forth implementation.

This release includes: support for opening files in read-write mode, support for enumerations, library improvements, the addition of a glossary to the manual, plus other changes.

Ruby 1.8.4 has been released. Ruby is a portable, object-oriented scripting language, offering exception handling, closures, blocks, garbage collection, and more.

A list of changes is available.

Motion-Twin ActionScript 2 Compiler 1.11 has been released. It is a portable, open-source compiler for ActionScript 2.

This release includes support for strongly-typed arrays, plus some bugfixes.

Ruby 1.8.4 preview 3 has been released. Ruby is a portable, object-oriented scripting language, offering exception handling, closures, blocks, garbage collection, and more.

Stephen Weeks has announced that updated performance benchmark results are available for the MLton 20051202 release. The runtime ratio, code size, and compile time of MLton for a number of different programs is compared to those of other Standard ML implementations, including ML Kit, Moscow ML, Poly/ML, and SML/NJ.

haXe Alpha 5 has been released. haXe is a language meant for WWW-related tasks, capable of being used to create Flash SWF files, and to generate JavaScript and Neko source code.

This release includes: a -main command line parameter to specify which class will contain the entry point, support for constructor inheritance, XML documentation output, libraries licensed under the BSD license, plus other changes and bugfixes.

It has been announced that an interpreter for the 4DL language is now available. 4DL is a four-dimensional programming language.

The TJC compiler has been announced. It translates Tcl source code to executable Java code.

Jasmin 2.0 has been released. It is an assembler for the Java virtual machine.

This release includes support for the JasminXT language, which is a backwards compatible extension adding support for StackMap attributes, offsets instead of labels, Signature attributes, and more.

The Ada UK Conference 2006 has been announced. The focus will be on the Ada 2005 standard, with the conference being held on March 28, 2006, in Manchester, England.

It has been announced that Scheme Request for Implementation 50: "Mixing Scheme and C", by Richard Kelsey and Michael Sperber, has entered 'withdrawn' status.