[Xotcl] Announcement: Next Scripting Framework 2.0b3 available

[Gustaf Neumann]

Dear Community,

We are pleased to announce the availability of the Next 
Scripting Framework 2.0b3
which can be obtained from http://next-scripting.org

Best regards
- Gustaf Neumann
- Stefan Sobernig

===============================================

Announcing NSF 2.0b3
*************************

Major changes relative to NSF 2.0b2 are:

    * Additional Features:
      - object parameters:
        call method "assign" on slot objects, when it is 
provided

      - include "-returns" in introspection for aliases and
        scripted methods. New subcommand "info method returns"
        for nx.

      - better compatibility with XOTcl 1.*:

        * invocation of objects via method interface follows per
          default the XOTcl 1.* conventions. In order to 
obtain the
          semantics of ensemble objects, the object properties
          "keepcallerself" and "perobjectdispatch" have to 
be used.

        * better handling of XOTcl 1.* configure commands 
(starting
          with a "-") when list property is lost (Many 
thanks to
          Zoran Vasjljevic for the good example)

        * use different version numbers in serializer to avoid
          mixups between XOTcl 1 and XOTcl 2 when both
          packages are installed

    * Improved Code Quality:
      - improved performance
        * rewrite of alias handling (alias reform)
        * improved branch prediction
        * significant speedup for handling large numbers
          of subclasses (subclass reform), avoid
          repetitious computations
        * significant speedup on mass-destroy (e.g. on 
thread exit)
      - provide better protection for deletion/overwriting
        of base classes
      - fixed potential duplicates on diamond inheritance
      - fixed unknown handling for "-local" and "-system"
        dispatches
      - improved compatibility for windows compilations
        (c89, __WIN32__)
      - fixed potential crashes
          * during method caching
          * error messages
          * implicit deletions
      - follow Tcl convention on error messages
        (start always with lower case)
      - better handling of multiple errors in a single command.
      - return GMT dates in Httpd as RFCs require

    * Improved documentation
      - fixed typos, improve wordings

    * Extended regression tests

MORE INFO
   General and more detailed information about the
   Next Scripting Framework and its components can be
   found at http://next-scripting.org