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Racket v8.4
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@jbclements jbclements released this 09 Feb 21:57
· 1419 commits to master since this release
v8.4
093c557

This is version 8.4 of Racket.

  • Command-line Racket provides a new expression editor by default for
    its read-eval-print loop (REPL). The new REPL is based on the Chez
    Scheme expression editor, but extended to use the same
    language-sensitive syntax coloring and indentation tools as DrRacket.

  • Typed Racket adds a kind system, preventing programmers from
    writing nonsensical type expressions. It checks whether type
    constructors are correctly applied to arguments, and separates
    type constructors from polymorphic types. The :kind form enables
    checking the kind of a type expression at the REPL. The new system
    also correctly rejects some ill-formed recursive types.

  • Racket has a file-or-directory-stat for unified information about
    file-system objects.

  • DrRacket shows the region affected by an #; S-expression comment
    by fading the commented-out region.

  • Racket on Chez has faster multiplication and division for some
    numbers.

  • Web server: The files dispatcher supports all standard caching-related
    HTTP response headers (e.g., Cache-Control).

  • Web server: A new dispatcher captures the common pattern of processing
    HTTP requests and responses in a layered fashion.

  • The Web Server supports use of the Cache-Control header, and includes
    a new wrapping dispatcher.

  • Expander: add "portal" syntax to support new forms of syntax object
    binding.

  • Documentation search is improved.

  • Some hash operations support an optional try-order? argument.

  • The plot-metrics interface has documentation.

  • Fonts support OpenType feature settings.

  • The Gui library has improved support for Wayland.

  • The computation of quadratic roots is further improved.

  • The set/c contract adds support for random generation.

  • DrRacket's interactions window supports #lang-specific coloring
    and indentation.

  • DrRacket's parenthesis-based keyboard shortcuts change based on
    the parentheses that each different #lang uses.

  • The release includes many other bug repairs and other improvements!

Transition/Update notes:

  • To turn off expeditor and make Racket's REPL go back to the old
    editline/readline-based editor, use the command

    ,input readline

    and then restart Racket. Get back to the new expression editor with

    ,input expeditor

    To toggle color mode for the new expression editor, use one of the
    following, which does not require restarting Racket:

    ,color #false
    ,color #true

  • Support for comment fading in DrRacket requires an increment to
    the "WXME" format version so files with non-text content written
    by DrRacket v8.4 will open only in v8.4 and later. This does not
    affect files that consist only of unicode text.

  • The addition of the kind system to Typed Racket means that certain
    mild abuses of the type system no longer type check, most notably
    the 'application' of a polymorphic type.

The following people contributed to this release:

Alex Harsányi, Alex Knauth, Alexander Shopov, Alexis King, Andrew
Mauer-Oats, Andy Keep, Ayman Osman, Ben Greenman, Bob Burger, Bogdan
Popa, Cameron Moy, D. Ben Knoble, Fred Fu, Greg Hendershott, Gustavo
Massaccesi, Jamie Taylor, Jarhmander, Jesse Alama, Joel Dueck, John
Clements, Jordan Johnson, Laurent Orseau, Leif Andersen, Marc Burns,
Matthew Flatt, Matthias Felleisen, Mike Engelhart, Mike Sperber, Noah
Ma, Oscar Waddell, Pavel Panchekha, Philip McGrath, rgkirch, Robby
Findler, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt, Sergiu Ivanov, Sorawee Porncharoenwase,
Stefan Schwarzer, Stephen De Gabrielle, Tony Garnock-Jones, Viko Riféo,
and Zachary Mao

Link to package regressions issue for the 8.4 release:
#4125

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