Below is the latest release notes draft. Comments? Robby
Racket has a new package system, including a catalog of already available packages. Please visit http://pkgs.racket-lang.org/ for an overview. Recent releases included the "beta" versions of the package system. Racket version 6.0 incorporates many improvements suggested by these preliminary experiences: * A package is treated as a single collection by default, so it is even easier to use a Github repository as a package. Get started quickly: http://docs.racket-lang.org/pkg/getting-started.html * DrRacket includes a new package manager GUI, which is also available as a stand-alone program via the "gui-pkg-manager" package. * The main Racket distribution has been broken into about 200 packages. An installation starts with Minimal Racket and then adds these bundled packages. Alternatively, you may now install a Minimal Racket distribution --- which is about 1/10 the size of the main distribution --- and add only those packages that you need. * Package installation supports pre-built packages that include compiled byte code and rendered documentation, meaning packages can be installed quickly when built versions are a available. All packages in the main distribution are available in pre-built form. Further improvements are in the works, including package documentation on the package-catalog web site. COMPATIBILITY NOTE: PLaneT will remain in place for the foreseeable future, but we expect all package work to shift to the new system. Beyond the package system, this release brings a number of other changes: * Racket's HTML documentation has a new and improved look, thanks to Matthew Butterick. * Racket's JIT compiler supports the ARM architecture. * Racket supports the Mac's Retina display mode. * The profiler provides a new mode that uses the errortrace library to produce fine-grained profiles. * A new contract profiler reports how much time programs spend checking contracts, and which contracts are most expensive. * The math/flonum library exports fast 105-bit precision operations. * Check Syntax handles generated identifiers, especially those introduced by struct (e.g. field selectors) and Redex (e.g., e_1, e_2) * 2htdp/batch-io includes functions for dealing with html/xml in files and web sites as X-expressions plus conveniences for web-based graph traversals.
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