[armedbear-cvs] r13171 - branches/0.24.x/abcl

Sat Jan 22 10:17:42 UTC 2011

Author: mevenson
Date: Sat Jan 22 05:17:41 2011
New Revision: 13171

Log:
Merge: r13165-13166:  Update README.


Modified:
   branches/0.24.x/abcl/README

Modified: branches/0.24.x/abcl/README
==============================================================================

--- branches/0.24.x/abcl/README	(original)
+++ branches/0.24.x/abcl/README	Sat Jan 22 05:17:41 2011
@@ -2,15 +2,15 @@
 ===================
 
 Armed Bear Common Lisp is an implementation of ANSI Common Lisp that
-runs in a Java virtual machine.  It compiles its code to Java byte
-code.
+runs in a Java virtual machine.  It compiles Lisp code directly to
+Java byte code.
 
 
 LICENSE
 =======
 
 Armed Bear Common Lisp is distributed under the GNU General Public
-License with classpath exception (described below).
+License with a classpath exception (see "Classpath Exception" below).
 
 A copy of GNU General Public License (GPL) is included in this
 distribution, in the file COPYING.
@@ -20,6 +20,8 @@
 conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole
 combination.
 
+** Classpath Exception 
+
 As a special exception, the copyright holders of this software give
 you permission to link this software with independent modules to
 produce an executable, regardless of the license terms of these
@@ -38,17 +40,17 @@
 
 After you have downloaded a binary release archive unpack it into its
 own directory. To run ABCL directly from this directory, make sure
-Java (version 1.5 or up) is in your shell's path. Then issue following
-command
+Java (version 1.5 or up) is in your shell's path. Then issue the
+following command:
 
     cmd$ java -jar abcl.jar
 
 which should result in output like the following
 
-    Armed Bear Common Lisp 0.19.1
-    Java 1.6.0_14 Sun Microsystems Inc.
+    Armed Bear Common Lisp 0.25.0
+    Java 1.6.0_21 Sun Microsystems Inc.
     Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM
-    Low-level initialization completed in 0.9 seconds.
+    Low-level initialization completed in 0.3 seconds.
     Startup completed in 2.294 seconds.
     Type ":help" for a list of available commands.
     CL-USER(1):
@@ -60,7 +62,7 @@
 There are three ways to build ABCL from the source release with the
 preferred (and most tested way) is to being to use the Ant build tool:
 
-* Use the Ant build tool for Java environments.  
+* Use the Ant build tool for Java environments.
 
 * Use the Netbeans 6.x IDE to open ABCL as a project.
 
@@ -72,6 +74,11 @@
 tested).  Just the JRE isn't enough, as you need the Java compiler
 ('javac') to compile the Java source of the ABCL implementation.
 
+Note that when deploying ABCL having JDK isn't a requirement for the
+installation site, just the equivalent JRE, as ABCL compiles directly
+to byte code, avoiding the need for the 'javac' compiler in deployment
+environments.
+
 
 Using Ant
 ---------
@@ -84,10 +91,10 @@
 
 Then simply executing
 
-    unix$  ant 
+    unix$ ant
 
 or
-    cmd$ ant.bat    
+    dos> ant.bat
 
 from the directory containing this README file will create an
 executable wrapper ('abcl' under UNIX, 'abcl.bat' under Windows).  Use
@@ -114,7 +121,7 @@
 two methods, but it still may be of interest to those who absolutely
 don't want to know anything about Java.
 
-First, copy the file 'customizations.lisp.in' to customization.lisp',
+First, copy the file 'customizations.lisp.in' to 'customization.lisp',
 in the directory containing this README file, editing to suit your
 situation, paying attention to the comments in the file.  The critical
 step is to have Lisp special variable '*JDK*' point to the root of the
@@ -133,10 +140,9 @@
 
     unix$ ./build-from-lisp.sh sbcl
 
-After a successful build, you may use 'abcl.bat' on Windows or 'abcl'
-on Unix to start ABCL.  Note that this wrappers contain absolute
-paths, so you'll need to edit them if you move things around after the
-build. 
+After a successful build, you may use 'abcl' ('abcl.bat' on Windows)
+to start ABCL.  Note that this wrappers contain absolute paths, so
+you'll need to edit them if you move things around after the build.
 
 If you're developing on ABCL, you may want to use
 
@@ -150,14 +156,14 @@
 
 This invokes javac separately for each .java file, which avoids running
 into limitations on command line length (but is a lot slower).
- 
+
 ** Building from another Lisp by hand
 
 There is also an ASDF definition in 'abcl.asd' for the BUILD-ABCL
 which can be used to load the necessary Lisp definitions, after which
 
     CL-USER> (build-abcl:build-abcl :clean t :full t)
-    
+
 will build ABCL.  If ASDF isn't present, simply LOAD the
 'customizations.lisp' and 'build-abcl.lisp' files to achieve the same
 effect as loading the ASDF definition.
@@ -168,21 +174,15 @@
 
 A lot of (renewed) energy has been spent to make ABCL a compliant
 and practically useable Common Lisp implementation.  Because of this,
-ABCL 0.19.1 now fails only 29 out of 21702 tests in the ANSI CL test
-suite.  Next to that, the fail count of the Maxima test suite has been
-reduced to only 5 - rounding errors.
-
-ABCL's CLOS does not handle on-the-fly redefinition of classes
-correctly. Quite a bit of energy has been spent in versions 0.16.0 and
-0.17.0 to improve CLOS performance. There is no support for the long
-form of DEFINE-METHOD-COMBINATION, and certain other required CLOS
-features are also missing. Enough CLOS is there to run
-ASDF2 and CL-PPCRE.
+ABCL 0.25.0 now fails only 28 out of 21702 tests in the ANSI CL test
+suite.  In addition, Maxima's test suite runs without failures now
+and ABCL's CLOS complete, with the exception of the long form of
+DEFINE-METHOD-COMBINATION - which is an ongoing effort.
 
-There is no MOP worth mentioning.
+The MOP implementation is incomplete.
 
-Patches to address any of the issues mentioned above will be gladly
-accepted.
+Patches to address any of the issues mentioned above will
+be gladly accepted.
 
 Please report problems to the development mailing list:
 
@@ -192,4 +192,4 @@
 
 On behalf of all ABCL development team and contributors,
 Erik Huelsmann
-March 20, 2010
+January 20, 2011


