gmane.comp.lang.racket.announce

Fixed Racket v5.2.1 Installers

Eli Barzilay — 2012-03-26T20:44:10

Dear Racketeers,

We have just released a DrRacket version 5.2.1 that starts fine today.
The fixed version has replaced the 5.2.1 installers.  This version and
the original 5.2.1 differ only in this one fix.

Today's DrRacket problem

Matthias Felleisen — 2012-03-26T14:45:27

Dear Racket users, 

Many of you noticed that DrRacket v5.2.1 refused to launch today,
March 26.  We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience.

The problem is due to a so-called "Easter egg", which is a visual
surprise that one developer builds into the code for the others and
our users -- a tradition going back to the early days of our
project. The bug affects only DrRacket, no other Racket software.

As far as version 5.2.1 is concerned, the bug will disappear tomorrow,
but it will return later this year.  For the upcoming release -- due
out before the next "easter egg" date -- we will either install much
more reliable test methods for the Easter eggs or we will remove them
entirely.

We intend to make a fixed version of 5.2.1 available later today. In
the meantime, we offer the following workarounds for the DrRacket bug:

* Revert to version 5.2:

     http://download.racket-lang.org/racket-v5.2.html

* In your current installation of 5.2.1, navigate to the following
  folder:

     collects -> drracket

Racket v5.2.1

Eli Barzilay — 2012-02-02T20:11:33

Racket version 5.2.1 is now available from

  http://racket-lang.org/

* Performance improvements include the use of epoll()/kqueue()
  instead of select() for the Racket thread scheduler, cross-module
  inlining of small functions, and the use of SSE instead of x87 for
  JIT-compiled floating-point operations on platforms where SSE is
  always available (including x86_64 platforms).  A related change
  is the interning of literal numbers, strings, byte strings,
  characters, and regexps that appear in code and syntax objects.

* DrRacket uses a set of composable ray-traced icons available from
  the new `images' library collection.

* Typed Racket's `typecheck-fail' form allows macro creators to
  customize the error messages that Typed Racket produces.  This is
  especially useful when creating pattern matching macros.

* The performance of Redex's matcher has been substantially
  improved; depending on the model you should see improvements
  between 2x and 50x in the time it takes to reduce terms.

* Plot

Racket v5.2

Eli Barzilay — 2011-11-10T03:16:45

Racket version 5.2 is now available from

  http://racket-lang.org/

Release Highlights:

* DrRacket comes with an experimental, on-line check syntax tool,
  although this new tool is disabled default.  See below for more
  information.

* The new `db' library offers a high-level, functional interface to
  popular relational database systems, including PostgreSQL, MySQL,
  and SQLite, as well as other systems via ODBC.

* A new XREPL collection provides convenient commands for a plain
  racket REPL.  It is particularly convenient for people who prefer
  console-based work and alternative editors.  See also the new
  chapter on command-line tools and other editors at the end of the
  Racket Guide.

* The `plot' collection has been reimplemented in Racket.  It now
  offers PDF output, log axes, histograms, and more.  Some code that
  uses `plot' will still work, and some will need light porting.
  The `plot/compat' module offers expedient backward compatibility.

* DrRacket uses more conventional key bindings:

Racket v5.1.3

Eli Barzilay — 2011-08-16T08:05:40

Racket version 5.1.3 is now available from

  http://racket-lang.org/

This is a bugfix release, resolving the DrRacket issue with the
contour view.  In addition, two tex files with problematic licensing
were removed.

Feedback Welcome,

Racket v5.1.2

Eli Barzilay — 2011-08-03T19:36:11

Racket version 5.1.2 is now available from

  http://racket-lang.org/

* The download page includes 64-bit installers for Mac OS X,
  Windows, and two Debian flavors.  Racket now supports OS X Lion.

* Racket now includes a new `racket/place' library to support
  parallelism, complementing `racket/future'.  Racket's parallel
  build process is now based on places instead of multiple OS
  processes.

  Places support share-nothing parallelism and message-passing
  communication.  Compared to futures, places are heavyweight, but
  they have a simpler performance model.

* The syntax-certificate system has been replaced by a syntax-taint
  system.  Both certificates and taints were designed to protect
  otherwise inaccessible bindings from abuse when they appear in
  macro expansions.  Taints are simpler and lighter, and the switch
  closes known holes in the certificate system.  Macros that are not
  implemented with `syntax-rules' or `define-syntax-rule', however,
  must explicitly use `syntax-protect' to pro

Racket v5.1.1

Eli Barzilay — 2011-04-30T07:07:58

Racket version 5.1.1 is now available from

  http://racket-lang.org/

* The new `racket/stream' library provides `stream-first',
  `stream-rest', a lazy `stream-cons', and so on.  Streams are a
  subtype of sequences, so they work in `for' forms.  Some sequence
  generators, such as `in-range', now produce streams.  A
  `racket/sequence' library replaces the old `racket/stream'
  library.

* The new `racket/syntax' library contains facilities useful for
  writing macros.  The new `syntax/srcloc' and `syntax/location'
  libraries provide support for manipulating source locations.

* The `racket/gui' library now supports multi-column list boxes and
  scrolling panels.

* The new `ffi/file' library is useful for writing foreign library
  bindings that cooperate with Racket's security guard mechanism.

* Generators from the `racket/generator' library can now have formal
  arguments that are used when the generator is fired up.

* Single-precision floating-point support is now enabled by default.
  Single-precis

Announcing the first Racket Days

Sam Tobin-Hochstadt — 2011-03-11T17:59:31

       Calling All Racketeers!

PLT is pleased to announce the date of the first Racket Days:

        23 & 34 July 2011

The meeting will take place at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.
It will be an opportunity for developers, researchers, and educators
using Racket, DrRacket, Program By Design, and related technologies to
come together to share plans, ideas, and enthusiasm.  To make it
accessible, we will not charge any registration fees; we'll also serve
you breakfast and lunch.

Racket Days will feature presentations by key members of the
development team, including Matthew Flatt on the future of Racket and
Matthias Felleisen on the Program By Design curriculum.

Most importantly, though, we also want it to feature you.  We are
interested in presentations of any length on using Racket in
industrial software development, academic research, or education -- as
well as anything that we haven't thought of.  All sorts of
presentations are welcome, from extended tutorials to short demos to
experience re

Racket v5.1

Eli Barzilay — 2011-02-15T03:34:07

Racket version 5.1 is now available from

  http://racket-lang.org/

The most significant change in version 5.1 is a rewrite of the GUI
library:

  http://blog.racket-lang.org/2010/12/racket-version-5.html

Unix/X users will see the biggest difference with this change,
because DrRacket and all Racket GUI programs now take on the desktop
theme for menus, buttons, and other GUI widgets.

In the long run, Racket GUI programs on all platforms will improve
as a result of the library rewrite.  In the short run, beware that
this first release of a new library will inevitably include a new
set of bugs.

Version 5.1 changes in more detail:

* The `racket/draw' library -- which implements the drawing half the
  GUI toolkit -- can be used independent of the `racket/gui/base'
  library and without a graphics display (e.g., without an X11
  connection).

  The new library has one small incompatibility with the old GUI
  toolbox: 'xor drawing is no longer supported.  The new library has
  many additional features: rotatio

[Racket announcement] Racket v5.0.2

Eli Barzilay — 2010-11-07T05:22:31

Racket version 5.0.2 is now available from

  http://racket-lang.org/

* Typed Racket's optimizer is now turned on by default; error
  messages have been simplified and clarified.

* Contracts: contracts on mutable containers allow functions or
  other higher order values, and contracts are checked when updating
  or dereferencing the containers.  The new contracts are slower
  than the old ones, so the old check-once functionality is still
  available.

  A new dependent function contract combinator, `->i', properly
  assigns blame for contracts that violate themselves and the
  generated wrappers are more efficient than `->d'.  (Although it
  does more checking so your contracts may be faster or slower).

  See the docs for `box/c', `hash/c', `vector/c', `vectorof' and
  `->i' for more details.

* The `when', `unless', `cond', `case', and `match' forms (in
  `racket/base' and derived languages) now allow immediate internal
  definitions.

* Web server: the formlets library provides more HTML form elements;

[Racket announcement] STOP'11 Call for Papers

Tobias Wrigstad — 2010-09-17T15:38:43

 
                         Call for Papers
                Script to Program Evolution (STOP)
                           at POPL 2011
                    Jan 29th, 2011, Austin, TX

Recent years have seen increased use of scripting languages in
large applications. Scripting languages optimize development time,
especially early in the software life cycle, over safety and
robustness.

As the understanding of the system reaches a critical point and
requirements stabilize, scripting languages become less appealing.
Compromises made to optimize development time make it harder to
reason about program correctness, harder to do semantic-preserving
refactorings, and harder to optimize execution speed. Lack of type
information makes code harder to navigate and to use correctly. In
the worst cases, this situation leads to a costly and potentially
error-prone rewrite of a program in a compiled language, losing
the flexibility of scripting languages for future extension.

Recently, pluggable type systems and annotation s