new version of PCL

[Gregor.pa@Xerox.COM]

There were times I never thought it would happen, but there is a new
version of pcl on arisia.xerox.com.  The *pcl-system-date* for this
version is:

          "2/6/90  A PCL for the 90's (beta)"

The files are in the /pcl/beta directory.  You can access them with
anonymous ftp.  People at PARC can get this version in ~gregor/pcl.

This version is different in a lot of ways from previous versions.  The
entire runtime machine has been reimplemented, almost all of the
metaobject protocol has been reimplemented, and a number of other
changes have been made as well.  This version conforms more closely to
the spec than previous versions and will complain about things you used
to be able to get away with in previous versions.

All in all, I expect this version to be faster for all programs and much
faster for some programs.  This will become more true as the port-specific 
performance problems get worked out.

This version has received some pretty significant testing, but I am sure
bugs remain.  There are also some known performance problems in some
ports, these are being worked out.

I would like to encourage the more brave among you to try this version
out soon.  I would like to get feedback on it, and at some point soon we
would like to gather more performance data on the new runtime machinery.
That will require that some user applications be running in the new one.


P.S.  I have only tried Genera 7.2, Lucid 3.0 and Franz 3.0.

Good luck and enjoy.
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