RELEASE

-*-Indented-Text-*-

Thomas version 1.1 contains the following changes from version 1.0:

* runtime-collections-generic.scm was too large to be compiled by Gambit.
We've split it into runtime-collections-generic1.scm and
runtime-collections-generic2.scm.

* sorted-applicable-methods now uses a new topological sort that uses a
number we call "class specificity".  Intuitively, class specificity
increases every time a class is specialized to produce a subclass.
Computationally, class specificity is the largest number of subclass links
between <object> and the class.  For example, consider this class
heterarchy:

			<object>		specificity = 0
			/  |  \
		      <a> <b> <c>		specificity = 1
		        \ /   /
		        <d>  /			specificity = 2
			  \ /
			  <e>			specificity = 3

Thus, during method dispatch on an object of type <d>, Thomas considers
methods specialized by class <d> to be more specific than those specialized
by <a> or <b>, which are in turn more specific than any specialized by
<object>.  Notice that the ordering of methods specialized by <a> and <b>
is not specified.  Methods specialized on <e> or <c> are not applicable
because <d> is not a subclass of either.

* portable-rep.scm and scc-rep.scm now also support the
`empty-thomas-environment!' operation.

$Id: RELEASE,v 1.3 1992/09/25 16:37:00 birkholz Exp $