Scala 2.7.3 RC1

Just in time for Christmas, here is the first release candidate of our
new Scala distribution: Scala 2.7.3 RC1. This new version is mainly
intended as a maintenance release: it fixes a number of bugs and
improves on various aspects of the existing code. There are no new
features, however; they are being added instead to a new development
branch, currently in its early stages, that will become the next major
Scala release sometime next year. If no particular problems are found
with this first release candidate, a final Scala 2.7.3 release should
follow in a few weeks.

You can download Scala 2.7.3.RC1, as usual, from our Download Page:
http://www.scala-lang.org/downloads. An updated Scala plugin for
Eclipse is also available (see http://www.scala-lang.org/node/94).

-------- WHAT IS NEW? -------------------------------------------------

There are no new features, as this is essentially a maintenance release;
however, many bug fixes and other improvements are available in this
version, including:

   * fixes for bugs #1460, #1467, #1461, #1464, #1454,
     #1382, #1374, #1402, #1379, #1375, #1241, #1263,
     #1235, #547, #1404, #1390, #1329, #1329, #1367,
     #1323, #1306, #1294, #1249, #508, #1206, #1267,
     #1289, #1271, #998, #1232, #1167, #1315, #820,
     #1083, #1257, #1264, #1358, #1514, #1541
   * fixed IntMap and LongMap.getOrElse
   * several optimisation fixes (dead-code elimination)
   * scaladoc fixes
   * deepToString fixes
   * fixed Queue.enqueue
   * ScalaSwing fixes and improvements
   * optimisation to Range.foreach (#1297)
   * fixed EOF problem with RegexParsers.phrase
   * fixed a problem with files vs. URLs on Windows.
   * fixed problem with partest-created compilers not finding
     scala package.
   * fix for testing.Show on .NET
   * fixes for Windows platform
   * fixed bug where fsc sometimes fails to start
   * fix memory leak in handling GC of actors
   * remove race condition when linking/unlinking actors
   * thread pool in actor runtime now uses Thread.getState()
     instead of timestamps on JVM 1.5, yielding substantial
     performance improvements
   * improve actor scheduling on JVM 1.4
   * fixes to BigDecimal
   * improvements to JVM 1.4 support