draft announce

1 files changed, 108 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/announce/2016.10.md b/docs/announce/2016.10.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4989b11
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2016.10.md
@@ -0,0 +1,108 @@
+# Announce: Rakudo Star Release 2016.10
+
+## A useful and usable production distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm pleased to
+announce the October 2016 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and usable
+production distribution of Perl 6. The tarball for the October 2016 release
+is available from <http://rakudo.org/downloads/star/>.
+
+This is the third post-Christmas (production) release of Rakudo Star and
+implements Perl v6.c. It comes with support for the MoarVM backend (all
+module tests pass on supported platforms).
+
+Please note that this release of Rakudo Star is not fully functional with
+the JVM backend from the Rakudo compiler. Please use the MoarVM backend
+only.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language ("Perl
+6") and specific implementations of the language such as "Rakudo Perl".
+This Star
+
+release includes [release 2016.10] of the [Rakudo Perl 6 compiler],
+version 2016.10 of [MoarVM], plus various modules, documentation, and
+other resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+[release 2016.10]: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rakudo/rakudo/2016.10/docs/announce/2016.10.md
+[Rakudo Perl 6 compiler]: http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[MoarVM]: http://moarvm.org/
+
+Some of the new compiler features since the last Rakudo Star release include:
+
+  * Test.pm now provides bail-out()
+  * Implemented $?MODULE and ::?MODULE
+  * Implemented CompUnit::Repository::Installation::installed
+  * .min/.max can now be called on Hashes
+  * .succ now increments additional 29 digit ranges, such as Thai digits
+  * Coercions now work in return types
+  * Added RAKUDO_EXCEPTIONS_HANDLER env var to control exceptions output
+  * CompUnit::Repository::Installation now cleans up short-name folders when empty
+  * All Unicode quotes can now be used as quoters inside qqww/qww
+  * Added basic Unicode 9 support (NFG changes for latest TR#29 still to do))
+  * IO::Handle.new now uses 'utf8' encoding by default
+  * It's now possible to refer to sigiless parameters inside `where` clauses
+  * Made Complex.new() return 0+0i
+  * Added shortname() method to CurriedRoleHOW
+
+Compiler maintenance since the last Rakudo Star release includes:
+
+  * zef and panda now correctly install on OpenBSD and FreeBSD
+  * Numerous improvements to content of error messages and addition of new
+    previously-undetected warnings
+  * Race conditions and deadlocks fixed
+  * Large number of Hash, Bag, Baggie BagHash etc. speedups
+  * Numerous improvements in CUR, offering up to 10x faster module loading
+  * Many permutations() and combinations() speedups
+  * Distribution::Path now handles native libraries correctly
+  * Junctions now work in .classify
+  * Fixed a memory leak involving EVAL
+  * Fixed tab-completion issues with non-identifiers in REPL
+  * Made huge improvement to CUR::Filesystem.id performance
+  * Many fixes and additions improving JVM backend support
+  * Removed argument-taking Dateish candidates for is-leap-year, days-in-month,
+    and day-of-week (were never part of the spec)
+  * Cool.IO no longer accepts any arguments
+  * Overflow check has been removed from infix:<**>(int, int)
+
+
+Notable changes in modules shipped with Rakudo Star:
+
+  * DBIish: Add simple Str support for Postgres type 790 (money)
+  * Linenoise: Remove dependency on Native::Resources
+  * Pod-To-HTML: Add support for lang="" attribute, ignore .precomp and other changes
+  * doc: Many documentation additions and improvements (too many to list!)
+  * json_fast: Don't explode when using to-json on a Num
+- * p6-native-resources: Mark this module as deprecated in the ecosystem
+  * panda: support for prove6 and uninstallation of modules and much else
+  * perl6-lwp-simple: Make SSL testing optional and more control over character encoding.
+  * svg-plot: Background color option and bubble plot type added. 
+
+perl6intro.pdf has also been updated.
+
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not yet
+handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming releases.
+Some of the not-quite-there features include:
+
+  * advanced macros
+  * non-blocking I/O (in progress)
+  * some bits of Synopsis 9 and 11
+
+There is an online resource at <http://perl6.org/compilers/features>
+that lists the known implemented and missing features of Rakudo's
+backends and other Perl 6 implementations.
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are many
+that we've missed. Bug reports about missing and broken features are
+welcomed at <rakudobug@perl.org>.
+
+See <http://perl6.org/> for links to much more information about
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, presentations,
+reference materials, design documents, and other supporting resources.
+Some Perl 6 tutorials are available under the "docs" directory in
+the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors for
+making Rakudo Star possible. If you would like to contribute, see
+<http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the <perl6-compiler@perl.org>
+mailing list, or join us on IRC \#perl6 on freenode.