2003-12-05

The December snapshot binaries have been uploaded, for sparcv9/Solaris and x86/Linux.

2003-11-01

The November snapshot binaries have been uploaded, for sparcv9/Solaris, x86/FreeBSD and x86/Linux.

2003-10-28

lGTk is a set of bindings to the GTk GUI toolkit. It contains bindings to a subset of the GTk version 2.0 widgets, and requires a recent CMUCL with callback support (try one of the recent snapshots).

2003-10-24

Support for graceful heap overflow has been committed by Raymond Toy. This means that when the heap is exhausted, instead of getting the dreaded *A2 gc_alloc_new_region failed abort, you will be put in the debugger. Currently implemented for SPARC and x86 platforms, and announced by a :heap-overflow-check feature.

2003-10-03

The October snapshot binaries have been uploaded, for sparcv9/Solaris, x86/FreeBSD and x86/Linux. There are two builds for sparcv9, one with the new generational garbage collector (please test and report any problems!), and the other with the traditional two-space collector.

2003-09-08

An experimental statistical profiler has been posted to the cmucl-imp mailing list by Gerd Moellmann. The principle is to take periodic samples of the currently executing function and call stack, to record where CMUCL is spending the most time. The profiling is driven by the SIGPROF signal. The profiler is able to generate a time usage histogram, and to produce a call graph with breakdown into cycles.

2003-09-05

Some preliminary work on instruction scheduling for the SPARC platform has been carried out by Raymond Toy. The aim is for CMUCL to emit code that is cleverer about instruction latencies and dependencies: for example, trying to insert a few instructions between a load and the use of the loaded register (to avoid the pipeline being stalled). This slows down compilation, but has the potential to improve the performance of generated code. More work is needed on ways to rearrange and group instructions.

2003-09-03

Support for dynamic-extent on SPARC has been committed, thanks to Raymond Toy.

2003-09-02

The September snapshot binaries have been uploaded, for sparcv9/Solaris, x86/FreeBSD and x86/Linux. There are two builds for sparcv9, one with the new generational garbage collector (please test and report any problems!), and the other with the traditional two-space collector.

2003-08-22

The generational garbage collector (:gencgc feature) has been ported to SPARC, thanks to Raymond Toy. This feature will remain experimental until further testing has been undertaken. Unlike the x86 version of gencgc, which is a conservative collector, the SPARC gencgc is a precise collector.

2003-08-21

Preliminary support for delivery as a standalone executable on ELF platforms (currently only FreeBSD) has been developed by Fred Gilham. This involves linking the CMUCL runtime and the different spaces in a core file together in a single executable, that can then be run without runtime dependencies on anything other than standard platform libraries.

2003-08-08

Snapshots of the CMUCL User's Manual have been uploaded to the snapshots directory of the download sites. PDF, A4 Postscript and dvi formats are available. These snapshots are intended to help users who are experimenting with the binaries that are regularly built from CVS.

2003-08-06

Support for the dynamic-extent declaration on x86 has been contributed by Gerd Moellmann. This means that &rest argument lists can be allocated on the stack (instead of on the heap), and be freed automatically when the function exits.

2003-07-06

Support for the dynamic-extent declaration on x86 has been contributed by Gerd Moellmann. This means that &rest argument lists can be allocated on the stack (instead of on the heap), and be freed automatically when the function exits.

2003-06-06

An implementation of simple streams, based on work by Paul Foley, has been committed.

2003-05-29

An experimental CMUCL binding to the Qt graphical libraries, called Idolino, has been announced by Heiner Schwarte.

2003-05-25

An experimental way of delivering programs as standalone executables has been posted to the cmucl-imp mailing list. The idea consists of stuffing the lisp image into an ELF section of the runtime, and extracting it on startup. This makes it possible to use CMUCL to produce an executable program that has no runtime dependencies other than the platform's standard shared libraries.

2003-05-23

An implementation of fwrappers has been committed, and the profiling and trace facilities have been modified to use it. This provides a more uniform way of implementing mechanisms that use function encapsulation.

2003-05-13

CMUCL now supports package locks, with an API very similar to the same feature in Allegro CL. Attempts to change the structure of a locked package (for example by changing its export or use list) lead to a continuable PACKAGE-LOCKED-ERROR being signaled. Symbols in a package whose definition-lock is enabled are protected from redefinition. The EXT:WITHOUT-PACKAGE-LOCKS macro can be used to execute forms with all package locks disabled.

2003-04-29

ANSI compliance fixes: in safe code, the CMUCL compiler no longer deletes dead code that could lead to errors being signaled at runtime.

2003-04-26

Binaires from CVS HEAD for x86-linux, x86-FreeBSD, sparcv9-solaris and alpha-linux have been uploaded to the download sites.

2003-04-20

Many bugs in CMUCL's type system (detected by Paul Dietz's ansi-test suite, distributed with GCL) have been fixed.

2003-04-15

Control stack overflow checking has been implemented for x86-FreeBSD and x86-Linux, thanks to Gerd Moellmann. Previously, code that overflowed the control stack (for example due to unchecked recursion) would cause CMUCL to crash with a segmentation violation; it will now lead to a continuable STORAGE-ERROR being signaled.

2003-04-10

CMUCL 18e has been released. See the release notes for details of all the improvements since 18d.

2003-04-03

Binaries for the 18e release for different platforms will start appearing on the download site and mirrors. The release will be announced officially once binaries are available for most platforms.

2003-03-22

The CVS repository has been tagged for the 18e release. Binaries for different platforms will be made available in the binaries directory of the download mirrors; please test them on your applications and report any problems. The release should occur in early April.

2003-03-10

The anoncvs repository is available again, following an OS upgrade on the main CMUCL server.

2003-03-01

CMUCL on MIPS running IRIX: Mike McDonald has revived the MIPS support, which should be included in the next release.

2003-02-22

A new GerdsPCL tarball is available in the experimental/pcl directory of the download sites. Binaries for x86-FreeBSD and x86-Linux are also provided. This release adds support for profiling methods.

2003-02-20

Experimental support for hardware cycle counters has been added for x86 and UltraSPARC platforms. This is based on the RDTSC instruction on Pentium and better processors, and on reading the %TICK register on UltraSPARC.

2003-02-17

A new GerdsPCL tarball is available in the experimental directory of the download sites. This adds improved tracing support and a PRINT-OBJECT method for conditions.

2003-02-06

A cross-referencing facility has been added to the compiler, thanks to Eric Marsden. This provides functions WHO-CALLS, WHO-REFERENCES, WHO-BINDS and WHO-SETS for functions and global variables. Documentation is provided in the CMUCL User's Manual.

2003-02-05

Support for generalized function names has been added, thanks to Gerd Moellmann. Standard function names are restricted to symbol like FOO, and the special case of (SETF FOO). This patch allows general names of the form (FOO BAR BAZ), which should be particularly useful for naming CLOS-related functions.

2003-02-03

Documentation: a new document with information on boostrapping early versions of CMUCL has been added to the website.

2003-01-26

Binaries for x86-linux, x86-freebsd and sparcv9-solaris from 2003-01-23 source have been uploaded to the binaries directory of the download sites.

2003-01-22

Anoncvs access has been temporarily disabled, pending a fix to the security problem in cvsd. Apologies for the inconvenience.

2003-01-13

Documentation: a new document provinding hints on tuning the CMUCL garbage collector has been added to the website.

2003-01-10

Antonio Leitao has posted the code of an Emacs-based debugger and inspector for CMUCL, that is based on ILISP. See the cmucl-imp mailing list for the source code.

Also see older news:

• news items from 2002
• news items from 2001

CMUCLon