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+# Announce: Rakudo Star Release 2016.07
+
+## 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 July 2016 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and usable production
+distribution of Perl 6. The tarball for the July 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 2016.07] of the [Rakudo Perl 6 compiler], version
+2016.07 of [MoarVM], plus various modules, documentation, and other resources
+collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+[release 2016.07]: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rakudo/rakudo/2016.07/docs/announce/2016.07.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:
+
+  * Ability to use a customer debugger module
+  * The "is-approx" sub from Test.pm6 now allows for relative/absolute tolerance
+  * A fail in a custom BUILD will now be returned, rather than thrown
+  * Introduce .Map coercer
+  * Implement alternate ways to call subtest
+
+Compiler maintenance since the last Rakudo Star release includes:
+
+  * Basic object creation (using either .new or .bless) now up to 3x faster
+  * All routines now have less overhead
+  * Sigificant optimizations for speed in many parts of the system (.map, gather/take etc.)
+  * Many precompilation fixes (including EVAL and improved support of OS packaging)
+  * Arrays with holes (e.g. from :delete) now correctly iterate/auto-vivify
+  * An issue with reverse dependencies of installed modules was fixed
+  * "is_approx" sub (note underscore) from Test.pm6 deprecated
+  * Harden Mu.Str against moving GC
+  * Simplify $*USER/$*GROUP initialization
+
+Notable changes in modules shipped with Rakudo Star:
+
+  * blah blah blah
+
+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.