Release: Parrot 0.4.7, "Caique"

[Chip Salzenberg]

[ I'll post this to use.perl.org when CPAN has had a chance to mirror. ]

On behalf of the Parrot team, I'm proud to announce Parrot 0.4.7, "Caique"!

What is Parrot? Parrot is a virtual machine aimed at running all dynamic
languages. The Parrot project home page is parrotcode.org.

You may now (or soon) grab Parrot 0.4.7 from:

http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/CHIPS/parrot-0.4.7.tar.gz

New in Parrot 0.4.7:

* New languages: PHP ("Plumhead"), Forth
* Updated languages: Ruby ("Cardinal"), Tcl, Lua
* Active Python language development is hosted at pirate.tangentcode.com
* Compilers:
+ PGE updated with more expressions, latest changes to S05
+ new Perl6 grammar compiler
* Integration:
+ Perl 5 module "Parrot::Embed" allows easy embedding of a Parrot
runtime into a Perl 5 program
* PIR:
+ new :init pragma for subs that must run before the main function
+ new :vtable pragma to identify subs that override PMC vtable methods,
eliminating the need for special subroutine names
+ PIR parser/compiler does not stop on first syntax error
+ Vanilla register allocator ("register alligator") greatly improves
performance compiling large functions
+ Eliminated limit on number of PIR macros
* PMCs:
+ hash lookups return null instead of None for missing keys
* Design:
+ PDD13 "Bytecode files: format and manipulation" - new
+ PDD10 "Embedding" - new
+ PDD25 "Concurrency" - rewritten
+ PDD15 "Objects" - new section on redesign requirements
+ PDD07 "Coding standards" - significant updates and automated tests
* Test Suite:
+ Many many more new tests
* Build Process:
+ autoconf compatible install options
* Misc:
+ Namespace refinements
+ Coroutine improvements
+ An impressive swarm of other bugfixes and enhancements

If you'd like to develop on Parrot (or help develop Parrot itself), we
recommend that you keep up with the latest and best Parrot code by using
Subversion or SVK to access our source code repository; see instructions at
http://www.parrotcode.org/source.html .

Thanks to all our contributors for making this possible, and our sponsors
for supporting this project.

Share & Enjoy!
--
Chip Salzenberg <ch...@pobox.com>