Draft Dotty 0.4.0-RC1 blog post

Author: allanrenucci

docs/blog/_posts/2017-10-02-fourth-dotty-milestone-release.md

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+---
+layout: blog-page
+title: Announcing Dotty 0.4.0-RC1
+author: Allan Renucci
+authorImg: /images/allan.jpg
+date: 2017-10-02
+---
+
+Today, we are excited to release Dotty version 0.4.0-RC1. This release
+serves as a technology preview that demonstrates new language features
+and the compiler supporting them.
+
+If you’re not familiar with Dotty, it's a platform to try out new language concepts and compiler
+technologies for Scala. The focus is mainly on simplification. We remove extraneous syntax
+(e.g. no XML literals), and try to boil down Scala’s types into a smaller set of more fundamental
+constructors. The theory behind these constructors is researched in
+[DOT](https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/215280), a calculus for dependent object types.
+You can learn more about Dotty on our [website](http://dotty.epfl.ch).
+
+<!--more-->
+
+This is our fourth scheduled release according to our [6-week release schedule](http://dotty.epfl.ch/docs/usage/version-numbers.html).
+The [previous technology preview](/blog/2017/09/07/third-dotty-milestone-release.html) improved
+stability and reliability.
+
+## What’s in the 0.4.0-RC1 technology preview?
+This technology preview comes with a brand new REPL and now support Scala 2.12.
+
+### [Native Dotty REPL](https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/pull/2991)
+TODO @felixmudler
+
+### [Scala 2.12](https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/pull/2827)
+TODO @smarter
+
+## How can you try it out?
+We ship with tools that help you try out the Dotty platform:
+
+  - [IDE features for Visual Studio Code](http://dotty.epfl.ch/docs/usage/ide-support.html)
+  - [sbt support, including retro-compatibility with Scala 2](https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty-example-project)
+
+You have several alternatives; use the `sbt-dotty` plugin, get a standalone
+installation, or try it online on [Scastie].
+
+### sbt
+Using sbt 0.13.13 or newer, do:
+
+```
+sbt new lampepfl/dotty.g8
+```
+
+This will setup a new sbt project with Dotty as compiler. For more details on
+using Dotty with sbt, see the
+[example project](https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty-example-project).
+
+### Standalone installation
+Releases are available for download on the _Releases_
+section of the Dotty repository:
+[https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/releases](https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/releases)
+
+We also provide a [homebrew](https://brew.sh/) package that can be installed by running:
+
+```
+brew install lampepfl/brew/dotty
+```
+
+In case you have already installed Dotty via brew, you should instead update it:
+
+```
+brew upgrade dotty
+```
+
+### Scastie
+[Scastie], the online Scala playground, supports Dotty.
+You can try it out there without installing anything.
+
+
+## What are the next steps?
+Over the coming weeks and months, we plan to work on the following topics:
+
+ - [Add Language-level support for HMaps and HLists](https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/pull/2199);
+ - Upstream more optimizations from Dotty Linker
+
+## Questions / Reporting Bugs
+If you have questions or any sort of feedback, feel free to send us a message on our
+[Gitter channel](https://gitter.im/lampepfl/dotty). If you encounter a bug, please
+[open an issue on GitHub](https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/issues/new).
+
+## Contributing
+Thank you to all the contributors who made this release possible!
+
+According to `git shortlog -sn --no-merges 0.3.0-RC1..0.4.0-RC1` these are:
+
+```
+   TODO
+```
+
+If you want to get your hands dirty with any of this, now is a good moment to get involved!
+You can have a look at our [Getting Started page](http://dotty.epfl.ch/docs/contributing/getting-started.html),
+our [Awesome Error Messages](http://scala-lang.org/blog/2016/10/14/dotty-errors.html) or some of
+the simple [Dotty issues](https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Aexp%3Anovice).
+They make perfect entry-points into hacking on the compiler.
+
+We are looking forward to having you join the team of contributors.
+
+## Library authors: Join our community build
+Dotty now has a set of libraries that are built against every nightly snapshot.
+Currently this includes scalatest, squants and algebra.
+Join our [community build](https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty-community-build)
+to make sure that our regression suite includes your library.
+
+To get started, see [https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty](https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty).
+
+
+[Scastie]: https://scastie.scala-lang.org/?target=dotty
+
+[@odersky]: https://github.com/odersky
+[@DarkDimius]: https://github.com/DarkDimius
+[@smarter]: https://github.com/smarter
+[@felixmulder]: https://github.com/felixmulder
+[@nicolasstucki]: https://github.com/nicolasstucki
+[@liufengyun]: https://github.com/liufengyun
+[@OlivierBlanvillain]: https://github.com/OlivierBlanvillain
+[@OlivierBlanvillain]: https://github.com/OlivierBlanvillain
+[@biboudis]: https://github.com/biboudis
+[@biboudis]: https://github.com/biboudis
+[@allanrenucci]: https://github.com/allanrenucci