From keithp@keithp.com Sat, 07 Apr 2001 21:21:08 -0700
Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2001 21:21:08 -0700
From: Keith Packard keithp@keithp.com
Subject: [Nickle]Preliminary nickle web site

As we near the public annoucement of nickle, I've started a web site.  
It's got some examples and the start of a tutorial along with pointers to 
the CVS repository and the mailing list.  Of course, the web site itself 
is in the repository if anyone wants to make changes.

We're anticipating getting the domain 'nickle.org' in the next week or so, 
at which point the web page will be referenced from that name.  Until then,
you can find it under:

	http://nickle.keithp.com

(I had to figure out apache virtual hosts for this trick).  If your DNS 
can't find this name, try http://keithp.com/nickle

Bart is busy writing the manual; once that's done, we'll be ready for a 
release.

-keith






From keithp@keithp.com Mon, 09 Apr 2001 15:21:21 -0700
Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2001 15:21:21 -0700
From: Keith Packard keithp@keithp.com
Subject: [Nickle]Release 1.99.1 tagged and shipped

I've tagged the CVS repository and built a tar.bz2 file containing version 
1.99.1 of Nickle.

Everything is available from http://nickle.keithp.com

-keith






From keithp@keithp.com Tue, 10 Apr 2001 11:17:31 -0700
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 11:17:31 -0700
From: Keith Packard keithp@keithp.com
Subject: [Nickle]RPMs for SuSE 7.0 and Redhat 6.2

<paladin@uvic.ca> sent in a .spec file for Nickle which I used to build 
RPMs for SuSE 7.0 and Redhat 6.2.  These are both available from
the web site.  I bumped the release number to keep things straight.

Tar:
	http://nickle.keithp.com/release/nickle-1.99.2.tar.bz2
Source RPM:
	http://nickle.keithp.com/release/nickle-1.99.2-1.src.rpm	
SuSE 7.0:
	http://nickle.keithp.com/release/SuSE/7.0/nickle-1.99.2-1.i386.rpm
Redhat 6.2:
	http://nickle.keithp.com/release/Redhat/6.2/nickle-1.99.2-1.i386.rpm

-keith






From bart@cs.pdx.edu Wed, 11 Apr 2001 21:53:02 -0700
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 21:53:02 -0700
From: Barton C Massey bart@cs.pdx.edu
Subject: [Nickle]Priority inversion and smart semaphores

One of the things on my "to-look-up" list is the whole issue
of priority inversion in realtime scheduling.  I suspect
that Nickle semaphores want to always allow the
least-recently suspended *highest-priority* process to wake
up (rather than their current plain LRS behavior), but I
can't say I've followed the issues well enough to be sure.
If someone else wants to check into this, that would be great!

	Bart Massey
	bart@cs.pdx.edu




From bart@cs.pdx.edu Tue, 17 Apr 2001 02:41:16 -0700
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 02:41:16 -0700
From: Barton C Massey bart@cs.pdx.edu
Subject: [Nickle]Nickle 1.99.3: Solaris (+ general portability)

I've checked in a few changes to Nickle that are neede to
make it compile cleanly (or at all) under Solaris, and
should improve general portability as well.  The
signal-handling stuff needs more careful attention, though.
In particular, Keith may be interested in the
AC_SYS_RESTARTABLE_SYSCALLS autoconf builtin.

The configure option
 --with-readline=PREFIX
works (?) now.

There are a bunch of open questions in the log entry: Keith
(or someone) should address them.

I've bumped the version number to 1.99.3 and tagged the CVS
tree with v1_99_3.  Keith may want to put builds on the web
page.  Or not.  Anybody want to volunteer to be the web
admin?

		Bart




From bart@cs.pdx.edu Tue, 17 Apr 2001 12:29:00 -0700
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 12:29:00 -0700
From: Barton C Massey bart@cs.pdx.edu
Subject: [Nickle]Return in catch block?

Keith: remind me again what we decided a return in a catch
block is supposed to do?  Does it currently do it?

		Bart Massey
		bart@cs.pdx.edu




From keithp@keithp.com Tue, 17 Apr 2001 13:39:52 -0700
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 13:39:52 -0700
From: Keith Packard keithp@keithp.com
Subject: [Nickle]Return in catch block?

Around 12 o'clock on Apr 17, Barton C Massey wrote:

> Keith: remind me again what we decided a return in a catch
> block is supposed to do?  Does it currently do it?

Well, it certainly doesn't do anything reasonable; twixt is broken as well.
They're also broken with continue.

We never figured out how it's supposed to work, but I don't think it's all 
that complicated.  For try/catch, it's particularily easy, the exception 
is uncaught as control passes through.  For twixt, control should pass 
through the exit clause and then to the enclosing function.

Continue should do the same stuff, but pass control back to the top of the 
loop.

Both of these would be trivial in a continuation passing compiler.

-keith






From keithp@keithp.com Tue, 17 Apr 2001 13:39:52 -0700
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 13:39:52 -0700
From: Keith Packard keithp@keithp.com
Subject: [Nickle]Return in catch block?

Around 12 o'clock on Apr 17, Barton C Massey wrote:

> Keith: remind me again what we decided a return in a catch
> block is supposed to do?  Does it currently do it?

Well, it certainly doesn't do anything reasonable; twixt is broken as well.
They're also broken with continue.

We never figured out how it's supposed to work, but I don't think it's all 
that complicated.  For try/catch, it's particularily easy, the exception 
is uncaught as control passes through.  For twixt, control should pass 
through the exit clause and then to the enclosing function.

Continue should do the same stuff, but pass control back to the top of the 
loop.

Both of these would be trivial in a continuation passing compiler.

-keith






From keithp@keithp.com Wed, 18 Apr 2001 00:38:34 -0700
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 00:38:34 -0700
From: Keith Packard keithp@keithp.com
Subject: [Nickle]New multiply code

I finally implemented Karatsuba multiplies for large natural product
computations.  This reduces the order of the computation from O(N^2)
to O(N^(log(3)/log(2)), but increases some internal costs and so
is only efficient for larger numbers.

The result has been to improve the benchmark numbers so that the 
numeric-computation limited results are now less than two times slower 
than the equivalent gmp code.  Most of the speedup in the existing 
benchmarks is actually from printing numbers faster.

Perhaps I'll investigate Toom-Cook multiplies later, but Karatsuba is
likely better than Toom-Cook up to several thousand bits which should do
for much of what Nickle is used for today.

-keith






