We are happy to announce version 1.4 of the Alice Programming
System:
http://www.ps.uni-sb.de/alice/
Alice ML is a functional programming language that enriches the
statically typed, closed functional world of ML with extensive
sup****t for type-safe programming of concurrent, distributed
and open systems. It also features cutting-edge constraint
programming technology based on the Gecode library.
Alice ML is a mostly conservative extension of Standard ML
featuring:
Futures
selective laziness and light-weight concurrency with
implicit dataflow synchronisation
Higher-order modules
higher-order functors and abstract signatures
Packages
dynamically typed ML modules as first-class values
Pickling
type-safe, generic & platform-independent marshalling,
including code, types and entire modules
Components
type-safe lazy dynamic linking across the Internet
Distribution
type-safe remote functions and network mobility
Constraints
constraint propagation and programmable search for
solving hard combinatorial problems with Gecode
Virtual Machine
****table implementation with just-in-time compilation
Interactive tools
easy to use interactive toplevel with graphical interface
and graphical browsers for data structures and search spaces
The highlights of this release are:
First-class Components and Sandboxing
Alice ML now features syntax for first-class components and
an experimental sandboxing infrastructure
Improved SML Conformance
the most significant gaps regarding SML conformance have been
closed, particularly signature inclusion and equality types
Potential Successor ML Features
integrated additional proposals for Successor ML
Improved Toplevel
a number of additions to the toplevel's GUI meant to improve
"user experience", especially for beginners
For a detailed list of changes please see:
http://www.ps.uni-sb.de/alice/download/CHANGES
Alice is open source under a BSD-style license. Source and binary
packages are currently available for Linux, Mac OS, and Windows.
Enjoy,
- Andreas Rossberg,
on behalf of the Alice Team
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