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Began drafting v10.1 release notes

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133
notes/release/10-1-0.md
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## Overview
Not yet written.
This first release built on the entirely rewritten Inform code-base contains
relatively little change in the language specification, but the move to an
Inter-based architecture, together with full support for command-line tools,
results in many new lower-level features.
## Language
Because of the scale of internal disruption since [version 9.3](9-3.md), an
exhaustive list of small changes is difficult to compile. Past release notes
have served as interim documentation on new facilities, but this repository
now provides all of that more easily. In particular:
## Documentation, examples and extensions
- The entire source base has been [published as a literate program here](https://ganelson.github.io/inform/).
- The compiler is now available as three command-line tools:
- `inbuild`, the new build manager, has a [manual here](https://ganelson.github.io/inform/inbuild/M-ui.html);
- `inform7`, the compiler proper, has its [manual here](https://ganelson.github.io/inform/inform7/M-cu.html);
- `inter`, a code-generator and linker for Inter code, has [a third manual here](https://ganelson.github.io/inform/inter/M-ui.html).
- Internally, two major new concepts have arrived:
- [Inter](https://ganelson.github.io/inform/inter/M-ti.html), a new intermediate
representation used inside the compiler;
- [kits](https://ganelson.github.io/inform/inbuild/M-agtk.html), which evolved
from the old concept of "template files" and "template code".
## Problem messages
Inform release notes have historically also included brief release notes on new
features and bug fixes in the apps for Windows, MacOS and Linux. But those have
their own repositories, and their own release notes, so from now on these
core Inform release notes will only mention major app changes.
## Language changes
As noted, there are surprisingly few changes to the outward-facing language
since [version 9.3](9-3.md).
- The semantic versioning standard, see [semver.org](semver.org), has been
adopted throughout the Inform tools, and in particular is what `inbuild`
uses internally. As part of that, extensions can now give any valid
Inform semver as their version numbers. See [this implementation](https://ganelson.github.io/inweb/foundation-module/7-vn.html)
for exactly what the rules are, but there won't be anything surprising.
Past extension version numbers in the form `9` or `9/861022` are automatically
converted to `9.0.0` or `9.0.861022` as a semver, but are still legal.
So for example this:
```
Version 3.1.4 of Sliced Pie by Marvin Dougal begins here.
```
is now legal in the opening declaration of an extension, and
```
Include version 3.1 of Sliced Pie by Marvin Dougal.
```
is legal as a way to include that extension. The Inform build manager
`inbuild` allows v3.1.4 to be used to meet a request for v3.1 because
semver rules say that it ought to be compatible. See the
[inbuild manual](https://ganelson.github.io/inform/inbuild/M-ui.html) for
how to store multiple versions of the same extension side-by-side.
- When I6-syntax material is spliced into Inform source text with the
`Include (- ... -)` construction, that material now has to comply with
the same rules applying to the source code for kits, also written in an
I6 syntax. In both cases, the material in question is no longer being
compiled to Z-code or Glulx virtual machine assembly language by `inform6`;
it is now being compiled to Inter intermediate code by a completely
different mechanism in `inter`. Most of the time users will never notice
the difference, and in any case `Include (- ... -)` is an expert-level
feature really only intended for complex extensions. However, there are
a handful of differences, notably:
- `for` loops written the old-fashioned way, with semicolons instead of
I6's preferred colons in the header, are not allowed. Changing the
semicolons to colons fixes any problems.
- With `inform6`, local variable names are allowed to coincide with statement
names: thus you can have a local called `style` even though this is also
a statement keyword. With `inter` this is not the case and such words
are reserved. The workaround is simply to rename the local in question.
- The `Include (- ... -)` construction previously provided a way to specify
where an inclusion should occur - before or after certain headings or
template files. Those syntaxes have all been removed, since they now have
no meaning. (They assumed the code would always be literally spliced together
into an Inform 6 output file: this is now far from true.) So, for example,
```
Include (- ... -) before "Parser.i6t".
```
now has no meaning; `Parser.i6t` no longer even exists, and there's no
sense of ordering in any case. In practice the code-generator is now much
better at avoiding code-ordering issues, and this removes any need for
inclusions to be before or after anything, so just deleting those words
will usually make everything okay:
```
Include (- ... -) before "Parser.i6t".
```
However, `instead of` is more problematic. This was typically used by
extensions to replace a function inside one of the old template files with
a new implementation. That remains possible, but must be written differently:
```
Include (-
[ BadOldFunction;
print "This is my deluxe new version!^";
];
-) replacing "BadOldFunction".
```
In fact this also works for variable and constant names, among other forms
of declaration. In each case, though, the idea is to supply a different
declaration for the same Inter symbol, which has to be a symbol defined
in one of the kits.
- Suppose that the main source text creates a command verb `PURLOIN`: this
clashes with the definition of `PURLOIN` made by `CommandParserKit`, a testing
command intended not to play any part in actual play. In previous versions
of Inform, such clashes were annoying enough that authors generally had to
avoid those command verbs entirely. But Inform now automatically detects
clashes of this sort, and silently changes the debugging command by putting
an exclamation mark `!` in front. In this example `PURLOIN` would have the
meaning in the source text, and `!PURLOIN` the meaning in the kit. Note
that preference is given to non-meta commands (i.e., those affecting the
world model) over testing commands.
- In text substitutions, a local variable name is preferred over an adaptive
verb; e.g. if `index` is both the name of a local variable and also the
infinite of a verb `to index`, so that text such as `"Consider [index]."`
is ambiguous - print the value of the variable, or print an inflected
form of the verb? - Inform will now give the local variable name priority,
on the general grounds that local definitions should override global ones.
- Adjective inflection in English has been improved: thus
- `big` to the comparative `bigger` and superlative `biggest`
- `long` to the quantity `length`
- Numerous maxima have been removed (for example, the limit on object name length
has gone), or raised (for example, the limit on quoted text length was raised to 8K).
- The `Options.txt` file, if used, is now expected to be encoded as UTF-8, not
ISO Latin-1. In practice it almost always contains ASCII characters anyway.
## Bug fixes
## Mac OS X app
## Windows app
To follow.

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@ -14,6 +14,18 @@ notably the MacOS app, which is being modernised to support Dark Mode.
## News items
### Release notes (8 August 2022)
Not a thrilling development, but we continue to get things organised ready for
formal releases of Inform from this repository. As part of that, the entire
[archive of release notes of past Inform releases](version_history.md) is now
converted to Markdown and migrated here.
In the past, changes to Inform were logged in a sort of ebook, and indeed this
could even be downloaded in ePub format. That was before we had this repository,
though, and the ebook is being discontinued. Release notes here are clearly
easier to maintain, and to link to commits and issues.
### State of Inform talk (30 July 2022)
[The text and slides](https://ganelson.github.io/inform-website/talks/2022/07/31/narrascope-iii.html)