1.6 changes, courtesy Alex Miller

Author: stuarthalloway

changes.md

@@ -1,5 +1,146 @@
 <!-- -*- mode: markdown ; mode: visual-line ; coding: utf-8 -*- -->
 
+# Changes to Clojure in Version 1.6
+
+## CONTENTS
+
+## 1 Deprecated and Removed Features
+
+None.
+
+## 2 New and Improved Features
+
+### 2.1 Java API
+
+The clojure.api package provides a minimal interface to bootstrap Clojure access from other JVM languages. It does this by providing:
+1. The ability to use Clojure's namespaces to locate an arbitrary var, returning the var's clojure.lang.IFn interface.
+2. A convenience method read for reading data using Clojure's edn reader
+
+IFns provide complete access to Clojure's APIs. You can also access any other library written in Clojure, after adding either its source or compiled form to the classpath.
+
+The public Java API for Clojure consists of the following classes and interfaces:
+* clojure.api.API
+* clojure.lang.IFn
+
+All other Java classes should be treated as implementation details, and applications should avoid relying on them.
+
+To lookup and call a Clojure function:
+
+    IFn plus = API.var("clojure.core", "+");
+    plus.invoke(1, 2);
+
+Functions in clojure.core are automatically loaded. Other namespaces can be loaded via require:
+
+    IFn require = API.var("clojure.core", "require");
+    require.invoke(API.read("clojure.set"));
+   
+IFns can be passed to higher order functions, e.g. the example below passes plus to read:
+
+    IFn map = API.var("clojure.core", "map");
+    IFn inc = API.var("clojure.core", "inc");
+    map.invoke(inc, API.read("[1 2 3]"));
+
+Most IFns in Clojure refer to functions. A few, however, refer to non-function data values. To access these, use deref instead of fn:
+
+    IFn printLength = API.var("clojure.core", "*print-length*");
+    API.var("clojure.core", "deref").invoke(printLength);
+
+### 2.2 JDK and Dependency Version Updates
+
+Clojure now builds with Java SE 1.6 and emits bytecode requiring Java SE 1.6 instead of Java SE 1.5. [CLJ-1268]
+
+### 2.3 Printing 
+
+* [CLJ-908](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-908)
+  Print metadata for functions when *print-meta* is true and remove errant space at beginning.
+* [CLJ-937](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-937)
+  pprint cl-format now supports E, F, and G formats for ratios.
+
+### 2.4 Other improvements
+
+* [CLJ-908](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-908)
+  Make *default-data-reader-fn* set!-able in REPL, similar to *data-readers*.
+* [CLJ-783](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-783)
+  Make clojure.inspector/inspect-tree work on sets.
+* [CLJ-896](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-896)
+  Make browse-url aware of xdg-open.
+* [CLJ-1160](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1160)
+  Fix clojure.core.reducers/mapcat does not stop on reduced? values.
+* [CLJ-1121](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1121)
+  -> and ->> have been rewritten to work with a broader set of macros.
+  
+## 3 Improved error messages
+
+* [CLJ-1099](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1099)
+  If non-seq passed where seq is needed, error message now is an ExceptionInfo with the instance value, retrievable via ex-data.
+* [CLJ-1083](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1083)
+  Fix error message reporting for "munged" function names (like a->b).
+* [CLJ-1056](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1056)
+  Handle more cases and improve error message for errors in defprotocol definnitions.
+* [CLJ-1102](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1102)
+  Better handling of exceptions with empty stack traces.
+
+## 4 Improved documentation strings
+
+* [CLJ-1164](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1164)
+  Fix typos in clojure.instant/validated and other internal instant functions.
+* [CLJ-1143](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1143)
+  Correct doc string for ns macro.
+* [CLJ-196](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-196)
+  Clarify value of *file* is undefined in the REPL.  
+* [CLJ-1228](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1228)
+  Fix a number of spelling errors in namespace and doc strings.
+* [CLJ-835](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-835)
+  Update defmulti doc to clarify expectations for hierarchy argument.
+
+## 5 Bug Fixes
+
+* [CLJ-1018](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1018)
+  Make range consistently return () with a step of 0.
+* [CLJ-863](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-863)
+  Make interleave return () on 0 args and identity on 1 args.
+* [CLJ-1072](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1072)
+  Update internal usages of the old metadata reader syntax to new syntax.
+* [CLJ-1193](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1193)
+  Make bigint and biginteger functions work on double values outside long range.
+* [CLJ-1154](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1154)
+  Make Compile.java flush but not close stdout so errors can be reported.
+* [CLJ-1161](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1161)
+  Remove bad version.properties from sources jar.
+* [CLJ-1175](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1175)
+  Fix invalid behavior of Delay/deref if an exception is thrown - exception will now be rethrown on subsequent calls and not enter a corrupted state.
+* [CLJ-1171](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1171)
+  Fix several issues with instance? to make it consistent when used with apply.
+* [CLJ-1202](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1202)
+  Protocol fns with dashes may get incorrectly compiled into field accesses.
+* [CLJ-850](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-850)
+  Add check to emit invokePrim with return type of double or long if type-hinted.
+* [CLJ-1177](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1177)
+  clojure.java.io URL to File coercion corrupts path containing UTF-8 characters.
+* [CLJ-1234](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1234)
+  Accept whitespace in Record and Type reader forms (similar to data literals).
+* [CLJ-1233](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1233)
+  Allow ** as a valid symbol name without triggering dynamic warnings.
+* [CLJ-1246](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1246)
+  Add support to clojure.reflect for classes with annotations.
+  * [CLJ-1184](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1184)
+  Evaling #{do ...} or [do ...] is treated as do special form.
+* [CLJ-1125](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1125)
+  Clojure can leak memory in a servlet container when using dynamic bindings or STM transactions.
+* [CLJ-1090](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1090)
+  Indirect function calls through Var instances fail to clear locals.
+* [CLJ-1076](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1076)
+  pprint tests fail on Windows, expecting \n.
+* [CLJ-766](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-766)
+  Make into-array work consistently with short-array and byte-array on bigger types.
+* [CLJ-1285](http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-1285)
+  Data structure invariants are violated after persistent operations when collision node created by transients.
+  
+
+## 6 Compatibility Notes
+
+None.
+
 # Changes to Clojure in Version 1.5.1
 
 * fix for leak caused by ddc65a96fdb1163b