Factor 0.77:

• Compiler:
  • Optimizing out conditionals where the test value is a constant.
  • Optimizing out type checks that are always/never satisfied.
  • Inlining method bodies when generic words are called on values with known compile-time types.
  • Side-effect-free words that output immutable values are evaluated at compile time if all their inputs are literal. You can declare a word as having this condition by suffixing the definition with foldable, eg:

    : cube dup dup * * ; foldable

  • Various arithmetic identities such as 1 * are optimized out.
• Sequences:
  • 2each ( seq seq quot -- quot: elt -- elt ) combinator
  • join ( seq glue -- seq ) combinator. Takes a sequence of sequences, and constructs a new sequence with the glue in between each sequence. For example:

      [ "usr" "bin" "grep" ] "/" join
    "usr/bin/grep"

  • Integers now support the sequence protocol. An integer is an increasing sequence of its predecessors. This means the count ( n -- [ 0 ... n-1 ] ) word is gone; just use >vector instead. Also, project has been made redundant by map.
  • The seq-transpose ( seq -- seq ) word is now named flip.
• Everything else:
  • Erlang/Termite-style concurrency library in contrib/concurrency (Chris Double).
  • Object slots are now clickable in the inspector
  • The matrices library has been greatly simplified. Matrices are now represented as vectors of vectors, and matrix words have been moved to the math vocabulary.
  • More descriptive "out of bounds" errors.
  • New with-datastack ( stack word -- stack ) combinator.
  • New cond ( conditions -- ) combinator. It behaves like a set of nested iftes; see its documentation comment for details. Note that it does not compile.

Factor 0.76:

• UI framework:
  • Now uses 3-dimensional co-ordinates throughout
  • Gradient paint, bevel border paint
  • Split pane gadget
  • Horizontal scroll bars and wheel mouse scrolling in scroller gadgets
  • Incremental layout improves listener responsiveness
  • The listener supports styled text output and presentations
  • Slide-show tutorial with live code examples
  • Performance improvements, code cleanups, bug fixes
• Sequences:
  • The following formely list-specific words are now generic:

    all? ( seq quot -- ? | quot: elt -- ? )
    all-with? ( obj seq quot -- ? | quot: elt -- ? )
    subset ( seq quot -- seq | quot: elt -- ? )
    subset-with ( obj seq quot -- seq | quot: obj elt -- ? )
    fiber? ( seq quot -- ? | quot: elt elt -- ? )
    prune ( seq -- seq )

  • The contains? word for testing membership in a sequence has been renamed to member? ( elt seq -- ? ).
  • The list-specific some? and some-with? combinators are gone. Their replacements are generic:

    contains? ( seq quot -- ? | quot: elt -- ? )
    contains-with? ( obj seq quot -- ? | quot: obj elt -- ? )
    find ( seq quot -- i elt | quot: elt -- ? )
    find* ( i seq quot -- i elt | quot: elt -- ? )
    find-with ( obj seq quot -- i elt | quot: elt -- ? )
    find-with* ( obj i seq quot -- i elt | quot: elt -- ? )

    See the developer's handbook for details.
  • The nreverse ( seq -- ) word has been removed.
  • reverse-slice ( seq -- seq ) outputs a new sequence that shares structure with the given sequence, but presents elements in reverse order.
  • The string-compare primitive has been replaced with the lexi word which now operates on any pair of sequences of numbers. The string> word has been replaced with lexi>.
  • The , word no longer accepts a string as input inside a make-string. In 0.75, the following two lines were equivalent:

    [ "Hello" , " world" , ] make-string
    [ "Hello" % " world" % ] make-string

  • Now, the former raises a type error. Use , with characters, and % with strings inside make-string.
• Streams:
  • The following words have been renamed:

    stream-auto-flush ==> stream-finish ( stream -- )
    stream-write-attr ==> stream-format ( string style stream -- )
    write-attr ==> format ( string style -- )

  • The following words no longer accept character arguments:

    stream-format ( string style stream -- )
    format ( string style -- )
    stream-write ( string stream -- )
    write ( string -- )
    stream-print ( string -- )
    print ( string -- )

  • Use the new words to write characters:

    stream-write1 ( char stream -- )
    write1 ( char -- )

    Note that stream-write1 is generic and your stream must implement it.
  • with-string word renamed to string-out ( quot -- string )
  • New string-in ( string quot -- ) word, calls quot with stdio bound to a stream that reads from the given string.
• Everything else:
  • Many improvements to the matrices library.
  • Improved inspector. Call it with inspect ( obj -- ).
  • The number of generations used for garbage collection can now be set with the +G command line switch. You must specify at least 2 generations.
  • Only 2 generations are used by default now, since there seems to be no performance benefit to having 3 after running some brief benchmarks.
  • Fixed bug where images saved from the jEdit plugin would fail to start.
  • md5 hashing algorithm in contrib/crypto/ (Doug Coleman).