[racket-dev] release notes draft

Below is the latest release notes draft. Comments?

Robby



Racket has a new package system, including a catalog of already available
packages. Please visit

 http://pkgs.racket-lang.org/

for an overview.

Recent releases included the "beta" versions of the package system.
Racket version 6.0 incorporates many improvements suggested by these
preliminary experiences:

 * A package is treated as a single collection by default, so it is even
   easier to use a Github repository as a package. Get started quickly:
     http://docs.racket-lang.org/pkg/getting-started.html

 * DrRacket includes a new package manager GUI, which is also available
   as a stand-alone program via the "gui-pkg-manager" package.

 * The main Racket distribution has been broken into about 200 packages. An
   installation starts with Minimal Racket and then adds these bundled
packages.

   Alternatively, you may now install a Minimal Racket distribution ---
   which is about 1/10 the size of the main distribution --- and add only
   those packages that you need.

 * Package installation supports pre-built packages that include
   compiled byte code and rendered documentation, meaning packages can be
   installed quickly when built versions are a available. All packages in
   the main distribution are available in pre-built form.

Further improvements are in the works, including package documentation on
the package-catalog web site.

COMPATIBILITY NOTE: PLaneT will remain in place for the foreseeable future,
but we expect all package work to shift to the new system.

Beyond the package system, this release brings a number of other changes:

 * Racket's HTML documentation has a new and improved look, thanks to
   Matthew Butterick.

 * Racket's JIT compiler supports the ARM architecture.

 * Racket supports the Mac's Retina display mode.

 * The profiler provides a new mode that uses the errortrace library to
   produce fine-grained profiles.

 * A new contract profiler reports how much time programs spend checking
   contracts, and which contracts are most expensive.

 * The math/flonum library exports fast 105-bit precision operations.

 * Check Syntax handles generated identifiers, especially those
   introduced by struct (e.g. field selectors) and Redex (e.g., e_1, e_2)

 * 2htdp/batch-io includes functions for dealing with html/xml in files and
   web sites as X-expressions plus conveniences for web-based graph
traversals.
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