changes in sbcl-0.8alpha.0 relative to sbcl-0.7.14

  * experimental native threads support (on x86 Linux >=2.4 only).
    This is not compiled in by default: you need to add :SB-THREAD to
    the target features.  See the "Beyond ANSI" chapter of the manual
    for details.
  * fix for longstanding nonANSIism: The old distinction between
    CL:CLASS objects and SB-PCL:CLASS objects has been eliminated.
    The return value from CL:FIND-CLASS is now a CLOS class, and
    likewise that of CL:CLASS-OF; CL:BUILT-IN-CLASS,
    CL:STRUCTURE-CLASS and CL:STANDARD-CLASS name CLOS classes.
  * An interface to the MetaObject Protocol, as described in Kiczales,
    des Rivieres and Bobrow's "The Art of the Metaobject Protocol",
    MIT Press, 1991, is available from the SB-MOP package.
  * incompatible change: the SB-PCL package should now be considered
    a private implementation detail, and no longer a semi-private MOP
    interface.
  * minor incompatible change: due to rearrangement for threads, the
    control stack and binding stack are now allocated at arbitrary
    addresses instead of being hardcoded per-port.  Users affected by
    this probably have to be doing advanced things with shared
    libraries, and will know who they are.
  * minor incompatible change: Previously, all --eval forms used were
    processed with READ before any of them were processed with EVAL.
    Now each --eval form is processed with both READ and EVAL before
    the next --eval form is processed. (Thus package operations like
    sbcl --eval "(defpackage :foo)" --eval "(print 'foo::bar)" now
    work as the user might reasonably expect.)
  * minor incompatible change: *STANDARD-INPUT* is now only an
    INPUT-STREAM, not a BIDIRECTIONAL-STREAM.  (thanks to Antonio
    Martinez)
  * minor incompatible change: Y-OR-N-P is now character-oriented,
    not line oriented.  Also, YES-OR-NO-P now works without errors.
    (thanks to Antonio Martinez)
  * sb-aclrepl module improvements: an integrated inspector, added
    repl features, and a bug fix to :trace command.
  * Known functions, which cannot be open coded by the backend, are
    considered to be able to check types of their arguments. (fixing
    a bug report by Nathan J. Froyd)
  * fixed a bug in computing method discriminating functions: It is
    now possible to define methods specialized on classes which have
    forward-referenced superclasses. (thanks to Gerd Moellmann)
  * fixed evaluation order in optional entries (reported by Gilbert
    Baumann)
  * SB-MOP:ENSURE-CLASS-USING-CLASS now takes its arguments in the
    specified-by-AMOP order of (CLASS NAME &REST ARGS &KEY).
  * SB-MOP:COMPUTE-EFFECTIVE-SLOT-DEFINITION now takes the
    required-by-AMOP NAME argument, as well as CLASS and
    DIRECT-SLOT-DEFINITIONS.  (thanks to Kevin Rosenberg)
  * fixed bug 20: DEFMETHOD can define methods using names that are
    not the proper names of classes to designate class specializers.
  * bug fix: INTERACTIVE-STREAM-P now works on streams associated with
    Unix file descriptors, instead of blowing up. (thanks to Antonio
    Martinez)
  * Garbage collection refactoring: user-visible change is that a
    call to the GC function during WITHOUT-GCING will not do garbage
    collection until the end of the WITHOUT-GCING.  If you were doing
    this you were probably losing anyway.
  * fixed bug in MEMBER type: (MEMBER 0.0) is not the same as
    (SINGLE-FLOAT 0.0 0.0), because of the existence of -0.0 which is
    TYPEP the latter but not the former.
  * The compiler issues a full WARNING for calls to undefined functions
    with names from the CL package.
  * MAP-INTO for a vector destination is open coded.  (reported by
    Brian Downing on c.l.l)
  * bug fix: the long form of DEFINE-METHOD-COMBINATION now accepts a
    documentation string.
  * fixed some bugs revealed by Paul Dietz' test suite:
    ** COPY-ALIST now signals an error if its argument is a dotted
       list.
    ** Condition slots are now accessed more correctly in the presence
       of multiple initargs for a given slot.
    ** The USE-VALUE, CONTINUE and STORE-VALUE functions now correctly
       exclude restarts of the same name associated with a different
       condition.
    ** DEFCLASS of forward-referenced classes with another
       forward-referenced class in the superclasses list no longer
       causes an error.
    ** Condition slots are now initialized once each, not multiple
       times. (thanks to Gerd Moellmann)
    ** CONVERT-MORE-CALL failed on a lambda list (&KEY). (thanks to
       Gerd Moellmann)
    ** &WHOLE and &REST arguments in macro lambda lists are patterns.
    ** NSET-EXCLUSIVE-OR does not return extra elements when its
       arguments contain duplicated elements.
    ** RESTART-CASE understands local macros.
    ** RESTART-CASE associates exactly its own restarts with a condition.
    ** ENDP in safe mode checks its argument to be of type LIST.
    ** COPY-SYMBOL in a threaded build no longer fails when the symbol
       in question is unbound.
    ** Optimized MAKE-INSTANCE functions no longer cause internal
       assertion failures in the presence of duplicate initargs.
    ** SLOT-MAKUNBOUND returns the instance acted upon, not NIL.
    ** Side-effectful :DEFAULT-INITARGS have their side-effects
       propagated even in the ctor optimized implementation of
       MAKE-INSTANCE.
    ** :ALLOW-OTHER-KEYS NIL is now accepted in an initarg list.