2023-03-03: Fuzion March Update

Hi,

here are our Fuzion news for March:

• General
  • Inspired by Steve Poole's talk at FOSDEM, we improved the security of the Fuzion repository and added an Openssf Scorecard (#1103, #1133, #1134, #1140, #1141).
• Fuzion language
  • Type inference of type parameters has been improved, e.g., numeric constants are only used as a fallback if no more accurate type is available (#1030, #1053).
  • Using universe.this.x it is now possible to access a feature named x in the universe, even when shadowed by another feature called x in the local scope (#1173).
• base library
  • Features time.date_time and time.now have been implemented to enable access to the current time and date (#1029).
  • Base library feature mutate now supports local mutation:

    
    m : mutate is           # declare local mutate type m
    
    x := m.go ()->          # create instance of m and use it
    
      v := m.env.new 42     # create mutable integer, init with 42
    
      for i in 1..10 do
        v <- 2 * v.get      # mutate it
      else
        v.get               # return final value
    
    say x
              

  • String ordering has been fixed after being broken for a short amount of time due to a typo (#1047).
  • After plain infix operators like =, <=, and so on had been temporarily removed due to moving the relevant code to use type features, they are back now (#1049). All uses of /= have been replaced by != now (#1050).
  • comparable_sequence has been merged into searchable_sequence (#1067).
  • a CTrie can now be created using a sequence of key-value pairs (#1073).
  • Some internal uses of the stream feature have been removed in preparation of the planned removal of the stream feature (#1090, #1091, #1093).
• interpreter back-end
  • The internal handling of open resources like open files has been improved to make the code cleaner and adapt it for future uses like handling of open network connections (#1155).
• C back-end
  • windows support for fileio and env vars has been improved (#1087).
• fz tool
  • Some error messages have been improved.
  • The output of the -XdumpFUIR option has been improved to allow better debugging (#1110).
• fuzion-lang.dev website
  • A page on the design of lazy arguments support has been added.
  • Account deletion is supported now.

Besides this, we are already working on some things that have not yet landed in Fuzion. Some highlights include:

• Fuzion language
  • The semantics of referencing outer instances via a.this the their types a.this.type is being defined, in particular in conjunction with inheritance used in these outer features.
  • Support for lazy evaluation of arguments at the language level is being prepared.
• base library
  • support for network connections
  • support for mutable data structures implemented using the mutate effect, in particular linked lists and a tree-based map.

Cheers,

--The Fuzion Team.