| 1 | #+title: ABCL 1.9.1 released |
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| 2 | * abcl-1.9.1 |
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| 3 | If one has been hesitating about using the latest ABCL because one |
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| 4 | "never uses a dot oh release", we have now sloughed off abcl-1.9.1 for |
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| 5 | your appraisal from the depths of a Bear's long winter nap. Now one |
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| 6 | can use the somewhat less buggy version of the Tenth Edition of Armed |
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| 7 | Bear Common Lisp, available, as usual, at |
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| 8 | <https://abcl.org/releases/1.9.1/> or via Maven |
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| 9 | <https://search.maven.org/artifact/org.abcl/abcl/1.9.1/jar>. |
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| 10 | |
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| 11 | ** News |
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| 12 | |
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| 13 | |
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| 14 | N.b. that when running on openjdk17 and later runtimes, there is quite |
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| 15 | a bit of necessary fiddling with command line arguments to "open" |
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| 16 | various modules to the Bear's introspective gaze. For example, see |
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| 17 | <https://abcl.org/svn/tags/1.9.1/ci/create-abcl-properties.bash> for |
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| 18 | the switches necessary to use CFFI to successfully run the CL+SSL test |
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| 19 | suite. |
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| 20 | |
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| 21 | As a reward for your patience, we mention the following notable |
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| 22 | improvements: |
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| 23 | |
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| 24 | *** CFFI compatibility |
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| 25 | |
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| 26 | We improved the compiler to use wide indices for stack frame locals |
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| 27 | for the ALOAD, ASTORE, ILOAD, ISTORE, LLOAD, and LSTORE opcodes, which |
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| 28 | among other goodness, allows CFFI-TESTS to compile again. In |
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| 29 | addition, we have updated the jar artifact used by CFFI to jna-5.12.1 |
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| 30 | which includes support for native linkage on the Apple Silicon |
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| 31 | and other exotic architectures. |
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| 32 | |
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| 33 | *** (Alan Ruttenberg) Ability to discriminate generic function execution on sub-types of MOP:SPECIALIZER |
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| 34 | |
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| 35 | Following SBCL, CCL, and ECL, the Bear now accepts subtypes of |
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| 36 | MOP:SPECIALIZER as a generic function discriminator. |
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| 37 | |
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| 38 | *** Overhauled relationship to later openjdk threading models |
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| 39 | |
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| 40 | Going back to the future of the original green thread models, recent |
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| 41 | openjdk releases have started offering lightweight threading |
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| 42 | implementations. For the Bear, the ability to spawn virtual threads |
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| 43 | is indicated by the presence of :VIRTUAL-THREADS in CL:*FEATURES*. |
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| 44 | Setting the special THREADS:*THREADING-MODEL* to :VIRTUAL results in |
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| 45 | THREADS:MAKE-THREADS spawning virtual threads. On some openjdks one |
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| 46 | may have to pass a command-line switch the JVM to enable virtual |
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| 47 | threading. |
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| 48 | |
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| 49 | *** (Uthar) Implement array types for JAVA:JNEW-RUNTIME-CLASS |
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| 50 | |
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| 51 | Support for creating synthetic Java classes at runtime via |
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| 52 | JAVA:JNEW-RUNTIME-CLASS has been improved by introducing machinery for |
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| 53 | dealing with array types. |
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| 54 | |
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| 55 | *** (Alejandrozf) Compiler uses of signals to fallback to interpreted form |
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| 56 | |
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| 57 | We fall back to use an interpreted form for compilation results larger |
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| 58 | than 65535 bytes, which fixes the loading of the FirCAS computer |
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| 59 | algebra system. |
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| 60 | |
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| 61 | *** (Alejandrozf) Further fixes to COMPILE-FILE-PATHNAME |
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| 62 | |
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| 63 | We have restored the ability to compile Maxima by hopefully untangling |
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| 64 | the lask kinks in the reworking of our COMPILE-FILE-PATHNAME logic. |
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| 65 | |
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| 66 | *** (Tarn W. Burton) Avoid NIL in simple LOOP from CL:FORMAT directives |
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| 67 | |
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| 68 | Simplify simple CL:LOOP requires only compound forms, in the place |
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| 69 | where returning NIL is neither permitted nor desired. |
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| 70 | |
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| 71 | *** Broad testing and tweaks across Java Long Term Support (LTS) binaries |
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| 72 | |
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| 73 | We have extensively tested against recent openjdk8, openjdk11, |
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| 74 | openjdk17, and openjdk19 binaries. Unfortunately, for openjdk17+ |
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| 75 | runtimes one needs to pass additional runtime command line switches to |
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| 76 | the hosting JVM which "open" Java modules to reflective actions. |
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| 77 | |
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| 78 | * Fuller details |
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| 79 | |
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| 80 | More details can be found in <https://abcl.org/svn/tags/1.9.1/CHANGES>. |
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| 81 | |
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| 82 | Enjoy, and please CONS responsibly⊠|
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| 83 | |
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