Ann.: CHICKEN 4.0.0

[bunn...@gmail.com]

Version 4.0.0 of CHICKEN, the portable and practical Scheme system has
been released. In addition to many bugfixes and cleaning up, it
provides
the following significant changes:

- PCRE has been replaced by Alex Shinn's excellent "IrRegex" regular
expression package (while still being API compatible to the old
regular expression subsystem)

- New implementations of tools to download, build and install
extension libraries, which are easier to use and provide more
flexibility (like download extensions via Subversion or installation
from a local tree). The extensive library of extensions is currently
in the process of being ported, see

http://chicken.wiki.br/chicken-projects/egg-index-4.html

for a list of currently available extension libraries

- The macro system has been completely rewritten and is now fully
hygienic with highlevel R5RS "syntax-rules" macros and low level
"explicit renaming" macros that allow full control over hygiene;
"define-macro" is not available anymore

- A module system has been implemented that fully supports hygienic
macros and integrates with separate and cross compilation; module-
and syntax meta-information is not retained in compiled run-time
code,
unless explicitly enabled by the user

- A new optimization mode "local" enables inlining of definitions that
are visible from other compilation units but not globally modified

- Better support for building and using CHICKEN on Windows (mingw and
MSYS)

- Experimental support for cross-module inlining

CHICKEN 4.0.0 can be downloaded from:

http://www.call-with-current-continuation.org/chicken-4.0.0.tar.gz

CHICKEN-related mailing lists can be found here:

http://mail.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/chicken-users
http://mail.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/chicken-hackers

To follow the latest development, access the svn repository at:

https://galinha.ucpel.tche.br/svn/chicken-eggs

Special thanks to Alaric for providing this read-only svn mirror
(updated
daily):

http://chicken.kitten-technologies.co.uk/svn

Send bug reports to to <chicken-...@nongnu.org> or use the
`chicken-bug' program.

Many thanks to all who helped improve and extend the system.

Enjoy!

[Michele Simionato]

On Apr 6, 1:38 am, "bunny...@yoho-gmail.com" <bunny...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Version 4.0.0 of CHICKEN, the portable and practical Scheme system has
> been released.

Congratulations, Felix! As far as I am concerned the biggest change
in
Chicken 4 is the macro system. I do not see in the list of available
eggs the syntax-case egg anymore. What does that mean? Is it in the
works
and will be available soon, or author of libraries relying on syntax-
case
are adviced to switch to the new builtin macro system instead?
Just for my information,

Michele Simionato