Release Announcement for v8.10

Internals
1 
The release announcement sketch that I have so far is below.  Please
mail me new items and/or edits.

Please phrase announcements using complete sentences and avoid the
word "now".

As of this release:

  • The updated syntax-parse feature uses a custom language and a runtime
    interpreter to reduce the size of compiled code

  • Racket includes primitives [im]mutable-string?, [im]mutable-bytes?,
    [im]mutable-vector?, [im]mutable-box?, and [im]mutable-hash?

  • Redex adds judgment-form->rule-names

  • Fasl and compiled code allow fxvectors and flvectors

  • DrRacket allows #lang-specific customization of the definition
    navigation popdown

  • Racket and DrRacket include Finnish internationalization

  • Check Syntax binding arrows are drawn for names bound with
    define-local-member-name

  • Many other improvements and bug fixes are included, including to
    the scribble and plot packages

Thank you

Thank you to the people who contributed to this release:

Adrien Ludwig, Alex Harsányi, Alex Knauth, Alexis King, Ben Greenman,
Cameron Moy, D. Ben Knoble, Greg Hendershott, Gustavo Massaccesi,
irreconsolable, Jay McCarthy, Joel Dueck, John Clements, Jordan Johnson,
Laurent Orseau, Matthew Flatt, Matthias Felleisen, Mike Sperber, Oscar
Waddell, Pavel Panchekha, Philip McGrath, reflektoin, Robby Findler,
Ryan Culpepper, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt, Shu-Hung You, Stefan Schwarzer,
Stephen De Gabrielle, and Yongming Shen

Link to tracking issue for package regressions:

2

I still don't think a link to the github issue on regressions is useful.

3

The DSL and interpreter part sounds like an update intended for the Racket developers, not an update for the Racket users. Only the code size part is noticeable to the users. What about descriptions such as:

  • Syntax Parse reduces memory consumption and the size of the generated code by switching to an interpreter.

It may be useful to inform the users that only define-syntax-classes are compiled, but I'm not sure how to include it.

4

I have no strong feelings on this, I'm happy to take it out. Does anyone want to keep it in?

5

Okay, here's the hopefully final version of the release notes, please let me know if anything is missing, misworded, or otherwise needs to be changed.

Racket version 8.10 is now available from

https://racket-lang.org/

As of this release:

  • syntax/parse no longer always compiles its patterns; this release
    includes an interpreter which is used to reduce code size

  • Racket includes primitives [im]mutable-string?, [im]mutable-bytes?,
    [im]mutable-vector?, [im]mutable-box?, and [im]mutable-hash?

  • Redex adds judgment-form->rule-names

  • Fasl and compiled code allow fxvectors and flvectors

  • DrRacket allows #lang-specific customization of the definition
    navigation popdown

  • Racket and DrRacket include Finnish internationalization

  • Check Syntax binding arrows are drawn for names bound with
    define-local-member-name

  • Many other improvements and bug fixes are included, including to
    the scribble and plot packages

Thank you

Thank you to the people who contributed to this release:

Adrien Ludwig, Alex Harsányi, Alex Knauth, Alexis King, Ben Greenman,
Cameron Moy, D. Ben Knoble, Greg Hendershott, Gustavo Massaccesi,
irreconsolable, Jay McCarthy, Joel Dueck, John Clements, Jordan Johnson,
Kamil Laskowski, Laurent Orseau, Matthew Flatt, Matthias Felleisen, Mike
Sperber, Oscar Waddell, Pavel Panchekha, Philip McGrath, reflektoin,
Robby Findler, Ryan Culpepper, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt, Shu-Hung You, Stefan
Schwarzer, Stephen De Gabrielle, and Yongming Shen

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