[Help-smalltalk] GNU Smalltalk 2.95b released

[Paolo Bonzini]

Since I won't be able to work much on gst for a while, it's time to 
release a new alpha.

The new release is available from:

  ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/smalltalk/smalltalk-2.95b.tar.gz

This release is known to fail the testsuite on the x86-64 architecture.

This release is almost feature complete with respect to 3.0; the only 
main missing piece is the conversion from the old syntax to the new one 
of the Smalltalk source code supplied with the distribution.

Changes include:

* Bug fixes in the new syntax parser.

* Conversion tool from old to new syntax.

* Continuations and generators have moved to the base image.

* Revamped package manager.

** All packages in the distribution are now installed in the new ".star" 
format (for SmallTalk ARchive). ".star" files include at the top a 
package.xml file (whose format is the same as the <package> tag of 
packages.xml).  The name of the ".star" file should be the same as the 
name of the package if the package.xml file has a <name> tag.

** In install mode, gst-package automatically creates a ".star" file.

** gst-package also accepts ".star" files on the command line; in this 
case, install mode will simply copy the file instead of rebuilding it 
from scratch.

** Packages can specify a "testing-only" subpackage that is loaded when 
running tests (e.g. with "gst-load --test" or "gst-sunit --package"), 
but not when loading the package normally.  This is done with a <test> 
tag nested into <package>.

* Portability improvements for gst-load/gst-sunit/gst-package.

* The graphical browser can now be started just by typing "gst-blox".

* Class library improvements in the area of file systems.

* GNU Smalltalk now needs InfoZIP to be installed on the machine where 
it is running, in order to use the new compressed package facility.  In 
the future, the dependency on InfoZIP will be limited to compiling GNU 
Smalltalk, or may be removed altogether.

* Since they are not portable outside Unix systems, the `archive' 
virtual filesystems (deb, lslR, mailfs, patchfs, uar, urar, uzoo, ulha, 
ucpio, utar) are now available only if the VFSAddOns package is loaded. 
 Without the package, only #uzip is available and it will only support 
extracting from ZIP files.