Guile 1.6.4 has been released.

[Rob Browning]

We are pleased to announce the availability of a new Guile release.
This is the next maintenance release for the 1.6 stable series.

You can find it here:

  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/guile/guile-1.6.4.tar.gz.

Guile is Project GNU's extension language library, an interpreter for
Scheme, packaged as a library that you can link into your applications
to give them their own scripting language.  Guile should eventually
support other languages as well, giving users of Guile-based
applications a choice of languages.

This is primarily a bugfix release.  Highlights include:

  - Various architecture (and compiler optimization) related bugs have
    been fixed: these changes should improve the situation on at least
    ia64, arm, m68k, alpha, and powerpc.

  - Readline prompt problem fixed: previously, the readline prompt
    disappeared when running Guile in non-echoing terminal mode (for
    example under GDB in Emacs).

  - Printing bug fixed: previously, the state of writingp in the print
    state could be altered by recursive calls to printing functions.

  - syntax-case bugs have been fixed

  - eqv? and equal? are now primitive generic functions: this means
    that it is possible to provide custom comparisons for new classes
    by specializing `eqv?' and `equal?' to those classes.

  - GOOPS/GC bug fixed: the class layout slot, which informs the GC
    about which slots to GC protect, is now initialized correctly.

  - GOOPS class redefinition bug fixed: the class redefinition
    protocol now properly removes the old accessor methods from their
    accessors.

  - GOOPS method dispatch bug fixed: previously, the code updating the
    method cache in generic functions got confused if handed method
    code created in a null environment (environment = empty list).  It
    now stands every environment imaginable (think about it!).

  - GOOPS init-thunks can now be primitive procedures: previously,
    attempts to provide something else than a closure as value for the
    #:init-thunk slot option would yield a segmentation fault.  Now,
    it's possible to supply a primitive procedure as init-thunk.
    Non-allowed values result in an error.

  - GOOPS longer creates layout entries for non-instance slots.

  - Garbage collection frequency improved for large malloc heaps: the
    decision when to run the GC is now done in a way that avoids GCs
    with a small yield for heaps with a large amount of malloced
    storage.  The minimum expected yield for malloc storage is now
    relative to the heap size, and not a fixed amount as it was
    previously.

  - Append mode in hooks: append mode in hooks (adding the hook last
    in the list) now works correctly.

  - %fast-slot-ref no longer checks slot boundness: this makes the
    <active-class> metaclass in (oop goops active-slot) working again.

  - New snarf macros: SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC, SCM_PRIMITIVE_GENERIC_1.
    These provide a way of adding primitive generics which is
    equivalent to SCM_DEFINE and SCM_DEFINE1.

The Guile WWW page is located at

  http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html

It contains a link to the Guile FAQ and pointers to the mailing lists,
among other things.

Any bugs found in this release will be addressed by further bugfix
releases numbered 1.6.*.  The next stable Guile release with
significant functional improvements will be version 1.8.0.

In between 1.6.x and 1.8.x, you can follow Guile development in CVS
and in the Guile mailing lists (see ANON-CVS and HACKING).  Guile
builds from the development branch of CVS will have version number
1.7.0.

Guile versions with an odd middle number, i.e. 1.5.* are unstable
development versions.  Even middle numbers indicate stable versions.
This has been the case since the 1.3.* series.

Please send bug reports to address@hidden

-- 
Rob Browning
rlb @defaultvalue.org, @linuxdevel.com, and @debian.org
Previously @cs.utexas.edu
GPG starting 2002-11-03 = 14DD 432F AE39 534D B592  F9A0 25C8 D377 8C7E 73A4