SISC 1.13.0-alpha Released

SISC 1.13.0-alpha is released and is available from the website.

We deviated from the planned release of the 1.12 series in order
to include some new functionality, as outlined below.  In addition,
this release includes a lot of effort to rationalize the Java to
Scheme API, to correct and simplify classpath behavior, and
to clarify the documentation.

Many users will be happy to know that we've provided a solution
to the record serialization problem, in the form of non-generative
records.

Also notable is SRFI 69 (hashtables) support, and the addition
of a default application context, meaning you can call to Scheme
from Java in just one call.

We're trying hard to make the manual easier to understand.  The
Java to Scheme section was rewritten with that in mind but is a work
in progress.  If you have suggestions for that or any other
chapter, please work with us to get things changed before the
final release.

Here is the full change log, enjoy!

        Scott


* Added byte-oriented read/write procedures.
* Modified binary ports to warn when they are used for
  character operations.  See bug 1439761.
* Fixed intricate class and resource loading problems.  See bug
  1434594.
* Fixed bug in multiline comment parsing - expressions after a
  multiline comment weren't always read correctly.  See bug
  1441078.
* Documented the character-port wrapping functions
  |open-character-(input|output)-port|.
* Replaced |current-class-path| and related functions with
  functions to inspect and extend a list of class path
  extensions. This addresses various class/resource loading
  weirdnesses reported in bug 1432887.
* Added the buffer-io module, which provides functionality
  similar to string-io, but for binary buffers.  See bug 
  1439657.
* Fixed bug 1435707 - Java->Scheme calls via S2J proxies now
  happen in a sensible dynamic environment.
* Modified SchemeCaller and Context.execute() to throw
  a SchemeException, allowing more flexible Java side 
  error handling.
* Modified sisc.sh to support older shells. See bug 1431789.
* Fixed a number of bugs in srfi-43 by merging in changes from the
  most recent reference implementation.
* Improved reporting of ClassNotFoundExceptions during
  deserialisation.
* Fix numerous undefined variable references in various SRFIs,
  fixing bugs 1433481, 1433487, 1433495, 1433501 and 1433526.
* Introduced notion of a default application context which is used in
  situations where no other application context is available,
  e.g. during sessions deserialisation in a J2EE container.
* Deprecated named application contexts.
* Changed Java serialisation to serialise library bindings by
  name. This fixes bug 1375026, where Java serialisation of
  continuations would end up serialising large chunks of the heap.
* Fixed handling of dependencies in |compile-file|. See bug
  1380458.
* Added support for SRFI 69.
* Added support for hash tables with arbitrary equivalence and
  hash functions.
* Added support for hash tables with weak keys.
* Fixed hash table serialisation to support complex keys with
  circular structures.
* Changed default hash table equivalence from eqv? to equal?.
* Provided types for all native Scheme values (e.g. <box>,
  <thread>, etc).  See feature request 1423513.
* Fixed bug where UTF-8 was not in fact the default character
  set. See bug 1391498.  Thanks to Norman Gray for the patch.
* Modifications to stack trace printing to omit initial
  info-less frames from the stack trace.
* Updated srfi-13 to latest reference implementation.
* Fixed a bug in srfi-13 reference implementation that resulted in
  string comparison predicates returning numeric values instead of #t. 
  See bug 1400758.
* Fixed bug in |parameterize| - escaping continuations now 
  capture the current value of parameters. See bug 1372516.


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