[release-notes] The Development beat, including: - Python3 - Ruby - RPM - TCL/TK - Erlang/OTP - OpenCL

Sun Oct 5 23:12:26 UTC 2014

commit 3f8de17fb038f5be74df1ba91bcf14514e4d87da
Author: Pete Travis <immanetize at fedoraproject.org>
Date:   Sun Oct 5 17:12:15 2014 -0600

    The Development beat, including:
    - Python3
    - Ruby
    - RPM
    - TCL/TK
    - Erlang/OTP
    - OpenCL

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 1 files changed, 168 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
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diff --git a/en-US/Development.xml b/en-US/Development.xml
index 8d82fda..a68f204 100644
--- a/en-US/Development.xml
+++ b/en-US/Development.xml
@@ -9,5 +9,173 @@
   <title>Development</title>
   <para />
 
+  <section id="development-erlang">
+    <title>Erlang/OTP</title>
+    <para>
+      In Fedora 21, the Erlang programming language has been upgraded to version R17 which provides better integration with the rest of the system. It also includes initial support for Ellyptic Curves (EC), enabling the use of some Ellyptic Curves, which was not possible in the previous version.
+    </para>
+    <para>
+      Other notable changes include:
+      <simplelist>
+        <member>Better interaction with systemd.</member>
+        <member>Improved EPMD integration.</member>
+        <member>It is now possible to install Erlang without installing the graphical libraries, if the user is not planning to use a GUI on the target machine.</member>
+        <member>Improved packaging process. It now takes less time to package Erlang software for Fedora.</member>
+      </simplelist>
+    </para>
+    <para>
+      See the <ulink url="http://www.erlang.org/news/73">Erlang/OTP 17.1 release article</ulink> for the full list of changes.
+    </para>
+  </section>
+
+  <section id="development-OpenCL">
+    <title>OpenCL</title>
+    <para>
+      This Fedora release includes basic support for the OpenCL standard, which provides sufficient environment for the development of the OpenCL enabled software. 
+    </para>
+    <para>
+      To enable OpenCL development, the Mesa's OpenCL state-tracker, the Portable Computing Language (pocl), and several other OpenCL packages have been added to the official Fedora repositories. The pocl language can be used on CPUs, and Mesa can be used on R600 AMD/ATI GPUs.
+    </para>
+  </section>
+
+  <section id="development-python3">
+    <title>Python 3.4</title>
+    <para>
+      With this release, <systemitem class="library" >Python 3</systemitem> has been upgraded to version 3.4, which provides various bug fixes, enhancements and security improvements over the previous version. For example, several new library modules and features have been added and multiple library modules have been significantly improved.
+    </para>
+    <para>
+      Read the <ulink url="http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0429/#features-for-3-4">Python 3.4 Release Schedule</ulink> and <ulink url="https://docs.python.org/dev/whatsnew/3.4.html">What’s New In Python 3.4</ulink> for details. 
+    </para>
+    <note>
+      <title>Python 2 is still default</title>
+      <para>
+        While the majority of Python packages are available for both Python and Python3, the <emphasis>default</emphasis> implementation of Python in Fedora is Python 2.7
+      </para>
+    </note>
+  </section>
+
+   <section id="development-rpm">
+    <title>RPM 4.12</title>
+    <para>
+      The RPM package manager has been updated to version 4.12, which brings Fedora in line with the latest upstream version.
+    </para>
+    <para>
+      This update brings a number of improvements, including:
+      <simplelist>
+        <member>Ability to package files larger than 4 GB.</member>
+        <member>Support for weak dependencies.</member>
+        <member>API users will be able to access file data more cleanly.</member>
+        <member>Payload data is now accessible over the API.</member>
+        <member>
+          A new tool, <command>rpm2archive</command>, will allow converting rpm packages to tar files instead of the outdated <command>cpio</command> format. The new tool will work with files larger than 4 GB, while <command>cpio</command> and <command>rpm2cpio</command> do not.
+        </member>
+      </simplelist>
+    </para>
+    <note>
+      <title>No weak deps in Fedora packages</title>
+      <para>
+        While the the underlying RPM libraries offer support for optional dependencies, soft requirements, and other weak dependencies, the packages in Fedora repositories are not yet leveraging this feature.
+      </para>
+    </note>
+    <para>
+      See the <ulink url="http://rpm.org/wiki/Releases/4.12.0">RPM 4.12 Release Notes</ulink> for a full list of changes.
+    </para>
+    <important>
+      <title>No new features for older RPM installations</title>
+      <para>
+        Using some of the new features will break forward compatibility. Packages using these features cannot be built or installed on older Fedora versions. Backward compatibility is expected to be maintained.
+      </para>
+    </important>
+  </section>
+  
+  <section id="dev-ruby">
+    <title>Ruby 2.1</title>
+    <para>
+      <systemitem class="library" >Ruby 2.1</systemitem> is the latest stable version of Ruby, and brings major increases in speed, memory efficiency, and reliability.
+    </para>
+    <para>
+      The update brings a soname bump. Therefore, Ruby packages which use binary extensions should be rebuilt - and this has been done for packages in the Fedora repositories. Nevertheless, since upstream payed great attention to source compatibility, no changes to your code should be needed. Additionally, RubyGems with binary extensions need to be updated to conform to the recent package guidelines to ensure compatibility with the new RubyGems release.
+    </para>
+    <para>
+      Also note that starting with this release, Ruby is adopting <ulink url="https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/news/2013/12/21/ruby-version-policy-changes-with-2-1-0/">semantic versioning</ulink>.
+    </para>
+    <para>
+      You can find a full list of changes in Ruby 2.1 in the <ulink url="https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/v2_1_0/NEWS">changelog</ulink>. Full documentation is available at the <ulink url="http://www.ruby-doc.org/">Ruby documentation page</ulink>.
+    </para>
+  </section>
+
+  <section id="dev-tcl_tck">
+    <title>TCL/TK 8.6</title>
+    <para>
+      In Fedora 21, TCL/TK has been upgraded to version 8.6.1, which includes numerous bug fixes and enhancements. Some of the notable features are described here.
+    </para>
+    <para>
+      For the full list of changes, see the <ulink url="http://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/8.6.html">TCL/TK Release Notes</ulink>. 
+    </para>
+    <section id="dev-tcl_tk-tcl">
+      <title>TCL 8.6</title>
+      <itemizedlist>
+        <title>Changes in TCL 8.6</title>
+        <listitem>
+          <para>
+            <emphasis>IPv6 Support</emphasis>
+          </para>
+          <para>
+            Support for IPv6 networking for both client and server sockets.
+          </para>
+        </listitem>
+        <listitem>
+          <para>
+            <emphasis>Support for SQL Database</emphasis>
+          </para>
+          <para>
+            The bundled tdbc package, which contains the Tcl DataBase Connectivity interface, now enables writing SQL database-powered scripts decoupled from any particular database engine. The bundled sqlite3 and tdbc::sqlite3 packages supply a powerful and popular SQL database engine that is ready to use. 
+          </para>
+        </listitem>
+        <listitem>
+          <para>
+            <emphasis>Support for Object Oriented Programming</emphasis>
+          </para>
+          <para>
+            The commands of the TclOO package are now part of the TCL language itself. This gives TCL a built-in fully dynamic, class-based object system and also includes advanced features such as meta-classes, filters, and mixins.
+          </para>
+          <para>
+            A new version 4 of the popular package Itcl (also known as "incr TCL") is also included, now built on a TclOO foundation, granting support for some traditional Object Oriented TCL programming out of the box as well.
+          </para>
+        </listitem>
+        <listitem>
+          <para>
+            <emphasis>Support for multi-thread operations</emphasis>
+          </para>
+          <para>
+            A thread-enabled default build, a bundled Thread package, and a new command interp cancel enable multi-threaded programming tasks on TCL 8.6.
+          </para>
+        </listitem>
+      </itemizedlist>
+    </section>
+    <section id="dev-tcl_tk-tk">
+      <title>TK 8.6</title>
+      <itemizedlist>
+        <title>Changes in TK 8.6</title>
+        <listitem>
+          <para>
+            <emphasis>PNG Image Support</emphasis>
+          </para>
+          <para>
+            Photo images now supports read/write in the PNG format, with the ability to set the alpha channel.
+          </para>
+        </listitem>
+        <listitem>
+          <para>
+            <emphasis>Angled Text</emphasis>
+          </para>
+          <para>
+            The new -angle $degrees to $canvas create text option rotates the displayed text.
+          </para>
+        </listitem>
+      </itemizedlist>
+    </section>
+  </section>
+
 </section>
   
