Dustyscript:Computer Programs for Kids / News: Recent posts

Basically, up to today release

Email the list for more info about what's been shaking on specifics...

Download dustyscript1.1 from now on, unless you're doing historic analysis of language development :-)

I am actually putting some harmless hooks into Dustyscript for a cross-development project I'm beginning...

http://cxtable.sourceforge.net

Was the first java thing I ever wrote of any significance..and it is ugly, bloated and AWT based...

I am going to be adding a dusty_jwidget library into the core Dustyscript 1.1, and also some capabilities of hooking a running StatementProcessor, and communicating more directly with it.... This is because I intend for the main gaming/scripting/extension language for cxtable ("The xTable Project" -- Providing the card table for geographically dispersed roleplayers to get playing) .. to be Dustyscript... I am re-writing cxtable to the core, and now is the time to link the two, if ever...... read more

I haven't done a release in awhile--but I have been working incrementally to get some items working to my expectations... (Some obscure things popped up here and there while writing my book about this programming language).

Also, I will be developing this project in tandem with http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/cxtable

(Dustyscript might actually be the "game engine" /GUI control language for the p2p roleplaying network I'm writing over there)... read more

Fixes __mostly__ cosmetic to the user...

Found some unreported bugs and issues with anyvar/things...etc.. Fixed.

Added thing-type File with rudimentary file-access. (Intended replacement for "load <stringvar> from <filename>" and "save <stringvar/stringvalue> to <filename>"

~Dave

I have a few directions that I would like to see the project go...

For starters...seeing it more widely used (in educational {homeschool, progressively minded organized schools..whatever}) would be great...

Also, a subproject (started but not gotten too far with) of a pre-compile-like stage, I would like to see continue....

Examples and tests (things that break the interpreter) would greatly help in making sure that Dustyscript is ready for prime time...... read more

I removed (in some ways grudgingly, as it was a valuable aid during the times when I needed a crutch) Dustyscript's dependency on the JEP/JEPlite Math Parser. Dustyscript now uses its own super-lightweight Math parsing engine..

Somewhere between last year and here, I added a bunch of little tidbits here and there...

They are all included... Browsing the CVS repository for dustyscript1.0 will get you a fair notion of what precisely has changed since the last release of Dustyscript 1.0... read more

Includes some bug-fixes.

Most notably includes the "allow" command (for circular definitions between things) and interfaces (java-style)

OK...there have been many small fixes...and some tweaks here and there... There is still documentation to be updated...

The latest "testapplet.html" reflects the newest jarred version of this release, for online demo...

The "dusty_hash.txt" work has been completely redone..so that the thing "HashMap" is as well integrated into the guts of the interpreter while still being a "JavaConnector"...... read more

Adds escape sequences... (some existed..but covers single and double quotes, backslashes, and the semi-colon)

\n newline
\r carriage return
\t tab
\\ \
\' '
\" "
\; ;

~Dave

If you are into testing it... email me ((xiarcel@prodigy.net)) if you need to know, at this point, how RCA differs from 0.99.9.9 feature-wise ((suprisingly, or maybe not so for most of you, there are many changes between them...))

Good luck--

The 'release notes' says alot... If you want to discuss the language as it is now, contact the list: dustyscript-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, or contact me myself (email above)..... read more

I know I have been promising RC1.0a for a very long time. (When I hit 0.99, I was pretty sure I was close..and then we had the 0.99.9.x series... )

When I targeted 2-20ish for release, it was with the assumption that what I thought had been ironed out had, in fact, been ironed out.

The Release Candidate A is not actually going to have any 'more' features from before. Some of the features are actually made to work like I would expect them to, and I made a bunch of fixes over the last two nights, and slightly less over the past week, to actually make the interpreter behave. I actually removed a language feature.... read more

Realistically, I need 1-2 more days to finalize release candidate A... Even with the 2 days... the docs will linger at being updated...

I am taking care of some final feature adds that I anticipate needing in the future (for a pre-processor piece pseudo-compiles Dustyscript source for better performance) so that I don't have to fix/break anything in Dustyscript 1.0 later.

Also.. I had a scoping issue I needed to resolve... and a new feature for java-connectors... It's all in CVS... now I merely need to finish the revised Hashmap thing (in dusty_hash.txt) and we should be good to go.... read more

Prior to the 1.0 Release Candidate-A, this is most likely my last CVS release.

The feature-add here is 'sendvar' and 'getvar':
getvar is entirely new.

sendvar differs from 'send' (yes, it is a JCI command), in that it is specifying a Var (specifically some instance of dscript.Var) rather than specifically a Dustyable/Javaconnector var...)

I intend to implement it with a modified Hashmap that actually uses a Java hashmap... that implementation will be in 1.0RC-A... read more

the dustyscript1.0/bin/libraries directory was missing from the original release.

I thought I would provide both .tar.bz2 and tar.gz versions from here on out...

if you happened to have DL'd or mirrored the first released file, replace it with one of the two.

If you uncompressed the earlier file overtop a previous dustyscript1.0 cvs release, your 'libraries' dir should have remained intact...

~Dave

Fixes a bug in if ( ) statements...

Some slight additions still to be made to the JavaConnector Interface...and then release candidate 1.0a should be ready...

~Dave

You can find at http://dustyscript.sourceforge.net/testapplet.html a ~200 kb (.jar)'ed applet that will give people a taste of what can be done with the language...

~Dave

Most recent 'full release': 0.99.9.9
Most recent 'cvs release': 11-21-02

Next 'full release': 1.0_rc_a
(Dustyscript 1.0, release candidate a)
(Expected:: ? 3-xx-03)

Next 'CVS Release'
--this features some mods to the JavaConnector Interface. Also..it features the stub-applet stuff for the 'testapplet.html' page...
Expected:: 2-19-03

((IN case you didn't notice))

I should have something w/in the next week to release...

The latest CVS reflects the ability to pass args when running a Dustyscript program...

I am toying w/ a Javaconnector alteration.... and a few minor fixes here or there... and maybe I'll be brave enough to release RC1.0
~Dave

There was a bug in VisualShell (this effects the Dusty Development Environment as well) and the ordering of how the shell was processing enter-keys...

Sometimes, the shell would process the key, post it to the TextArea, and then run the command. Sometimes, the command ran before the post to the TextArea...

This has been fixed.

I am also looking into potentially adding some sort of synchronization. I might not, though... I feel that I can probably put a Dustyscript 'sockets' wrapper in place, as well as a URL thing, in case the budding young dustyscript programmers wish to use web-access...... read more

This latest release adds the ability to declare an action that takes either a group of a specific type ("integers") or a thing of a specific type ("Widget")... You can have an action that takes a group, and one that takes integers. (a group, specified) with the same name.

Enjoy,

Dave

Have you ever wanted to do:

action myaction takes MyThing mt gives ~ {/*stuff*/};

..but could only do:

action myaction takes Thing mt gives ~ {/*extra type-check stuff*/ /*stuff*/};

??

Well..never fear... the new CVS Release will be here!

~Dave
PS- just resolving some performance issues with it, and it will be ready for prime-time.

Major fix for memory issue (??)

I encountered it when using 'count' to hash alot of pairs to a dusty_hash (Hashmap) thing.

At about 150-250, it was getting an OutOfMemory error. (or a StackOverflow)

Fixed it to not run out of memory.

Some more incremental fixes and bug removals, no notable feature adds.. (a tweak in Javaconnector potential, and in a few more places)

~Dave

The 10-30 file (on release) contained some extraneous backup (*~) files... as well as an older version JEPlite....

The file I put up this morning contains none of those extraneous backup files, and the newest version of JEPlite...

~Dave

I have released what should be the final version of Dustyscript prior to the 1.0 release candidate.

Some duplicate (backup) files made it into the *.gz... Hence the bigger size.

~Dave

I need to update the documentation, and then release 0.99.9.9... this release should mark the final feature release in Dustyscript... prior to the 1.0.a Beta release, which will then go through major testing as I draft the book...

Currently..we added the ":last" index value for groups, which indicates the current last element in the group. :first would be redundant, as it is :1 (assuming something's there).. ... read more