Factor 0.79:

• Compiler:
  • New basic block optimizer performs more aggressive dead load and store elimination.
  • Stack shuffles are compiled more efficiently.
  • Pushing literals on either side of a stack shuffle is now compiled more efficiently.
  • Tail-recursive inlined words are compiled in a new way, saving a few instructions.
• Sequences:
  • Faster map, 2each and 2map.
  • Arrays are now better supported and should be used instead of vectors where resizing is not desired.
  • Everything else:
    • The distinct t type is gone. Now, the t object is just a symbol.
    • Hashtables did not obey the rule that equal objects must have equal hashcodes, so using hashtables as hashtable keys did not work.

  Factor 0.78:

  • Consecutive stack operations are now composed into single shuffle expressions.
  • The return stack pointer is now stored in a register on x86.
  • Non-recursive inline words are compiled more efficiently.
  • Fix PowerPC bootstrap issue, and fixnum-shift, fixnum/i overflow.

  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.
  • Collections:
    • sort ( seq quot -- | quot: elt elt -- -1/0/1 ) combinator now works with any sequence, not just a list. The comparator also has to return a signed integer, not just a boolean. It is much faster than the old sorting algorithm.
    • binsearch ( elt seq quot -- i | quot: elt elt -- -1/0/1 ) and binsearch ( elt seq quot -- elt | quot: elt elt -- -1/0/1 ) combinators perform a binary search on a sorted sequence.
    • 2each ( seq seq quot -- quot: elt -- elt ) combinator
    • join ( seq glue -- seq ) word. 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.
    • 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 make-hash ( quot -- namespace ) combinator executes quotation in a new namespace, which is then pushed on the stack.
    • The <namespace> word is gone. It would create a hashtable with a default capacity. Now, just write {{ }} clone.
    • Sequence construction words changed:

      make-list    ==> [ ] make
      make-vector  ==> { } make
      make-string  ==> "" make
      make-rstring ==> "" make reverse
      make-sbuf    ==> SBUF" " make
      

    • The every? word has been replaced with monotonic? ( seq quot -- ? ). Its behavior is a superset of every? -- it now accepts any transitive relation, and checks if the sequence is monotonic under this relation. For example, [ = ] monotonic? checks if all elements in a sequence are equal, and [ < ] monotonic? checks for a strictly increasing sequence of integers.
  • Development tools:
    • In the UI, object slots are now clickable in the inspector.
    • Inspector now supports a history and an interactive loop; it prints a brief help message when it starts describing usage.
    • The prettyprinter has been merged with the unparser. The unparse ( object -- string ) word has been moved to the prettyprint vocabulary, and can now produce a parsable string for any class supported by the prettyprinter.
    • New unparse-short ( object -- string ) returns a string no longer than a single line.
    • The prettyprinter now supports many more configuration variables. See the handbook for details.
    • New profile ( word -- ) word. Causes the word's accumulative runtime to be stored in a global variable named by the word. This is done with the annotation facility, the word's definition is modified; use reload ( word -- ) to get the old definition back from the source file.
  • User interface:
    • Binary search is now used for spacial indexing where possible. This improves performance when there are a lot of lines of output in the listener.
    • Scroll bars now behave in a more intuitive manner, closer to conventional GUIs.
    • Menus now appear when the mouse button is pressed, not released, and dragging through the menu with the button held down behaves as one would expect.
    • The data stack and call stack are now shown. In the single-stepper, these two display the state of the program being stepped. In the inspector, the call stack display is replaced with an inspector history.
    • Pack layouts with gaps are now supported.
    • Many bug fixes.
  • Everything else:
    • New sleep ( ms -- ) word pauses current thread for a number of milliseconds.
    • New with-datastack ( stack word -- stack ) combinator.
    • New cond ( conditions -- ) combinator. It behaves like a set of nested iftes, and compiles if each branch has the same stack effect. See its documentation comment for details.
    • Formally documented method combination (G: syntax) in handbook.
    • Erlang/Termite-style concurrency library in contrib/concurrency (Chris Double).
    • Completely redid infix algebra in contrib/algebra/. Now, vector operations are possible and the syntax doesn't use so many spaces. New way to write the quadratic formula:

      MATH: quadratic[a;b;c] =
          plusmin[(-b)/2*a;(sqrt(b^2)-4*a*c)/2*a] ;

      (Daniel Ehrenberg)
    • Support for client sockets on Windows. (Mackenzie Straight)

  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).