Scala 2.8.0 RC5 is now available, after an issue was found in the RC4 release.

With Scala 2.8.0, packages can now contain methods, fields and type aliases, in addition to classes and objects. Specialised type parameters are also introduced for enabling the compiler to generate multiple versions of a given definition.

To match the new Scala 2.8.0 RC5, a new build of the Scala IDE for Eclipse has also been released.