no-herd vapier@gentoo.org Mike Frysinger Critical Mass Modula-3 5.1 (CM3) is the latest release of the Modula-3 compiler produced by Critical Mass, which contains considerable enhancements to the compiler, run-time system, and core libraries, which have not been publicly available so far. The changes made by Critical Mass, Inc. since their CM3 4.1 release include: * Modula-3 modules loadable at runtime * *IMPLICIT* exceptions (changes language semantics) * checked runtime errors are mapped to the implicit exception RuntimeError.E * garbage collector failures are also mapped to implicit exceptions * COM-compatible object layout (for WIN32) * Unicode support: WIDECHAR, Text, Text8, Text16, Unicode interfaces * extended ASSERT pragma: *ASSERT condition [ ("," | WITH) msg ] * * new DEBUG pragma: *DEBUG condition [ ("," | WITH) msg {, msg} ] * *DEBUG [ msg {, msg } ] * * 64 bit support for 64 bit machines There have been many more changes, and the 4.1 release also contained lots of improvements compared to the SRC release, for example support for DLL generation on Win32, much easier configuration procedure, binary installation (and installer), reorganization and speedup of the builder etc. For the first free release of CM3, Elego Software Solutions has added the following changes: * new gcc backend based on gcc 2.95.2 * updated/added runtime support for platforms FreeBSD2, FreeBSD3, FreeBSD4, LINUXLIBC6, and SOLgnu * minimal binary installation packages for Win32, Linux, FreeBSD, and SOLgnu * scripts for m3 package handling, system booting, installation, and distribution archive creation