GNU Mes 0.26 released

Sun Dec 3 12:50:31 UTC 2023

We are happy to announce the release of GNU Mes 0.26.

It's been only a month since the previous release mainly because most
this work has been waiting for 0.25 to be released.  This release
represents 194 commits over one year by two people.  This release brings
Guile module support and support for running Gash and Gash-Utils.

We are excited that the NLnet Foundation is sponsoring this work!

What's next?

Bringing the Full Source Bootstrap to NixOS.  Remove indirect Guile
dependencies (via Gash and Gash-Utils) from the Mes bootstrap in Guix.
Support for bootstrapping gcc-4.6.4, and a Full Source Bootstrap for
armhf-linux, and riscv64-linux.

Enjoy!

* About

  GNU Mes is a Scheme interpreter and C compiler for bootstrapping the
  GNU System.  It has helped to decimate the number and size of binary
  seeds that were used in the bootstrap of GNU Guix 1.0.  Recently,
  version 0.24.2 has realized the first Full Source Bootstrap for Guix
  <https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2023/the-full-source-bootstrap-building-from-source-all-the-way-down/>.
  The final goal is to help create a full source bootstrap as part of
  the bootstrappable builds effort <https://bootstrappable.org> for any
  UNIX-like operating system.

  Mes + MesCC + Mes C Library can build a bootstrappable TinyCC
  <https://gitlab.com/janneke/tinycc> that is self-hosting.  Using this
  bootstrappable-tcc and the Mes C library we can build an ancient
  version of the GNU tools triplet: glibc-2.2.5, binutils-2.20.1,
  gcc-2.95.3.  This is enough to bootstrap Guix for i686-linux,
  x86_64-linux, armhf-linux and aarch64-linux.

  Mes was inspired by The Maxwell Equations of Software: LISP-1.5 --
  John McCarthy page 13, Guix's source/binary packaging transparency and
  Jeremiah Orians's Stage0 <https://github.com/oriansj/stage0>, a
  ~500-byte self-hosting hex assembler.

* Download

  git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/mes.git

  Here are the compressed sources and a GPG detached signature[*]:
    https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mes/mes-0.26.tar.gz
    https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/mes/mes-0.26.tar.gz.sig

  Use a mirror for higher download bandwidth:
    https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/mes/mes-0.26.tar.gz
    https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/mes/mes-0.26.tar.gz.sig

  Here are the SHA1 and SHA256 checksums:

    581d7dba5f9749dd232a203d04175494ded0e77d  mes-0.26.tar.gz
    0f2210ad5896249466a0fc9a509e86c9a16db2b722741c6dfb5e8f7b33e385d4  mes-0.26.tar.gz

  [*] Use a .sig file to verify that the corresponding file (without the
  .sig suffix) is intact.  First, be sure to download both the .sig file
  and the corresponding tarball.  Then, run a command like this:

    gpg --verify mes-0.26.tar.gz.sig

  The signature should match the fingerprint of the following key:

    pub   rsa4096 2018-04-08 [SC]
          1A85 8392 E331 EAFD B8C2  7FFB F3C1 A0D9 C1D6 5273
    uid   Jan (janneke) Nieuwenhuizen <janneke at gnu.org>

  If that command fails because you don't have the required public key,
  or that public key has expired, try the following commands to retrieve
  or refresh it, and then rerun the 'gpg --verify' command.

    gpg --recv-keys 1A858392E331EAFDB8C27FFBF3C1A0D9C1D65273

  As a last resort to find the key, you can try the official GNU
  keyring:

    wget -q https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-keyring.gpg
    gpg --keyring gnu-keyring.gpg --verify mes-0.26.tar.gz.sig

* Changes in 0.26 since 0.25.1

  ** Core
  *** Mes now has a Guile-compatible record interface.
  *** Mes now has a Guile-compatible hash-table interface.
  *** Mes now uses exceptions instead of asserts.
  *** Mes now supports Guile-compatible modules and variable lookup.
  *** The reader now supports `#\fs', `#\nl', and `#\np'.
  *** Mes now supports vectors in syntax-rules.
  *** Dynamic-wind was fully implemented.
  *** Mes now has regex support.
  *** Mes now supports functional record setters.
  *** simple-format now supports `~%'.
  *** Charsets can now be used in `string-index'.
  *** The (srfi srfi-14) module was completed.
  **** 9 new modules
  (ice-9 ftw), (ice-9 i18n), (ice-9 receive), (ice-9 regex), (rnrs io
  ports), (rnrs bytevectors), (srfi srfi-2). (srfi srfi-11). (srfi srfi-37).
  **** 46 new functions
  alist-cons, append-reverse!, call-with-port, call-with-input-file,
  call-with-input-string, call-with-output-file, chdir, clone-port,
  closedir, concatenate, drop, drop-while. environ, execle,
  file-system-fold, fold-matches, getpid, hash-clear!, hash-fold,
  hash-map->list, hash-remove!, hash-table?, link, list-matches,
  match-let, mkdir, opendir, partition, pipe, primitive-exit, readdir,
  reduce, rename-file, rmdir, seek, set-fields, span, sleep,
  string-concatenate-reverse, string-count, string-pad, string-pad-right,
  string>, string<, umask, uname, utimes, vector-fold.
  *** Mes now supports running Gash and Gash-Utils.
  ** MesCC
  *** MesCC now uses Guile-compatible modules.
  ** Noteworthy bug fixes
  *** Many bug-fixes to hygiene, string primitives, optional arguments.

See also <https://bootstrappable.org>.
Join bug-mes at gnu.org and #bootstrappable on irc.libera.chat for
discussions.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release:

    35	Janneke Nieuwenhuizen
   159	Timothy Sample

-- 
Janneke Nieuwenhuizen <janneke at gnu.org>  | GNU LilyPond https://LilyPond.org
Freelance IT https://www.JoyOfSource.com | Avatar® https://AvatarAcademy.com
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