[M3devel] [Modula-3] Draft press release

[Olaf Wagner]

Quoting Peter Eiserloh <eiserlohpp at yahoo.com>:

> Hi Olaf,
>
> I began working on writing a press release for the impending
> official release.  Would you either suggest any changes, or
> simply take it and run with it.

It's great that somebody starts to work on advertising!
We should wait for the final release before publishing
an official press notice though. As there have been many
changes to threading again in the release branch, there should
at least be an RC5 (which may then become the `official' release).

Browsing your text, I don't see any mention of the threading improvements
(system based threads default on almost all platforms --> better scaling on
multi-processors, improved M3 user threads code) and garbage collection
work. Perhaps we could insert some quotes from Antony?

You may want to add more changes from the list at
http://www.opencm3.net/releng/relnotes-5.8-RC4.html, though not
every detail needs to be listed in the press release.
cm3ide comes to mind, as well as m3gdb, improved Windows support,
and REFANY extensions.

> BTW: I went to the download page to download a copy of
> the source for version 5.5, but only found binaries for
> selected architectures.

The sources are there, but `Sources' was missing in the heading.
It's the first archive listed.

> Also, that section was listed as
> "Current Development Snapshots: CM3 d5.5.0".  Do we really
> want to say "Current"?

No. I've removed several `current's :-)

> *** BEGIN CUT ***
> CM3 V5.8 PRESS RELEASE
>
> The CM3 software development team is pleased to announce
> the release of CM3 version 5.8.4, is now available for
> download from
>
>    http://www.opencm3.net/download.html
>
> CM3 is an open source Modula-3 compiler, descended from the
> Critical Mass Modula-3 compiler, which itself came from
> Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) Systems Research Center (SRC)'s
> m3 compiler.
>
> This is the first release of the 5.8 branch.  It contains
> many enhancements over the previous official release (5.5),
> including (but not limited by):
>
> * Language enhancements:
> 	o    New primitive type
> 		- LONGINT
         o    Minimal tagged REFANY values
>
> * New supported architectures:
> 	o AMD64_LINUX
> 	o PPC_DARWIN

This is not new, but I386_OPENBSD and AMD64_FREEBSD are. I'm not sure
what will finally be available though.

> 	o X86_DARWIN
> 	o etc ...
>
> * Compiler Improvements
> 	o Rebased on top of GCC-4.1

I think that should be 4.3.

> 	o Additional information provided with version
>           information.
> 	o Support configuration scripts (in quake) reworked
> 	  for more commonality between architectures.

Runtime Improvements:

         o system-based threading default on most target platforms allowing
           better scaling on multi-processors
         o many enhancements to the garbage collector
         o optional alternative TEXT implementation which promises
           better performance
         o restructured low-level code avoiding redundancies, making new ports
           easier to create and maintain

> * Additional software suites:
         o CM3-IDE, the open source release of Critical Mass' Reactor (tm)
           product
> 	o Caltech-parser
> 	o Cvsup.
>
> * Miscellaneous:
> 	o documentation:
> 		- Manual pages for (cm3, quake, m3makefile, ...).
         o much improved debugging with m3gdb

> Some selected historical improvements of CM3 over the
> original DEC-SRC m3 compiler are:
>
> * Language enhancements:
> 	o New primitive type
> 		- WIDECHAR, and new widechar literal
> 	o New pragmas:
> 		- ASSERT,
> 		- DEBUG,
> 		- IMPLICIT.
>
> * Text may contain Unicode characters,
> * Support for dynamically linked (shared) libraries.
>
> * The quake supporting scripting language is now embedded
>   within the compiler itself.
>
> We hope everyone tries this latest version of our Modula-3 compiler,
> and associated library suite.
>
> The CM3 Modula-3 development team.
> *** END CUT ***
>
>
> +--------------------------------------------------------+
> | Peter P. Eiserloh                                      |
> +--------------------------------------------------------+

Probably I've missed something; others may check and extend the list.

Olaf
-- 
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