[ANN] Dezyne 2.18.0 released

[Janneke Nieuwenhuizen <janneke@gnu.org>]

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We are happy to announce Dezyne 2.18 which introduces shared interface
state.

* About

Dezyne[0] is a programming language and a set of tools to specify,
validate, verify, simulate, document, and implement concurrent control
software.

The Dezyne language has formal semantics expressed in mCRL2[1] developed
at the department of Mathematics and Computer Science of the Eindhoven
University of Technology (TUE[2]).  Dezyne requires that every model is
finite, deterministic and free of deadlocks, livelocks, and contract
violations.  This achieved by means of the language itself as well as by
builtin verification through model checking.  This allows the
construction of complex systems by assembling independently verified
components.

* Summary

Before 2.18.0, for a component to be able to act on the state of a
another component behind an interface, it would need to define and
maintain a shadow copy of its state.

Now given a port `port' and a boolean state `bool state' be referred to
as `port.state' in expressions by the components on either side of the
interface.  Note that the access of such state is read-only.

See also the documentation <https://dezyne.org/documentation.html>.

We will evaluate your reports and track them via the Gitlab
dezyne-issues project[3], see our guide to writing helpful bug
reports[4].

* What's next?

In the next releases we would like to see:
- Improved debugability of queueing behavior related to the defer and
  external keywords.
- Unification of extern data and state types in parameter passing and
  returning.
- Generating system traces to explore system properties and the use of
  these in the verification of the generated code.
- Further improving of the parser infrastructure with respect to
  language extensions and early editing feedback.

* Future

Looking beyond the next releases and in no particular order:
- Module-specifications, i.e., user defined functional properties at
  component and system level.
- Extern data-interfaces, i.e., the ability to inspect extern data and
  leverage this information in the behavioral control flow as well as to
  add algorithm support.
- Hierarchical behaviors, i.e., adding the support for an aspect oriented
  way of dividing up behavior and the introduction of named behaviors.
- Module Based Testing, i.e., the ability to verify any implemention
  against its module specification by means of test execution.

Enjoy!
The Dezyne developers.

* Download

  git clone git://git.savannah.nongnu.org/dezyne.git

Here are the compressed sources and a GPG detached signature[*]:
  https://dezyne.org/download/dezyne/dezyne-2.18.0.tar.gz
  https://dezyne.org/download/dezyne/dezyne-2.18.0.tar.gz.sig

Here are the SHA1 and SHA256 checksums:

  13599d3b4b7a47696848576b51f1abbbe3513ec2  dezyne-2.18.0.tar.gz
  f16b21d1cd9833752421331cba903bb7d33d7544dfcafb868bbbf27d99ef79d1  dezyne-2.18.0.tar.gz

[*] Use a .sig file to verify that the corresponding file (without the
.sig suffix) is intact.  First, be sure to download both the .sig file
and the corresponding tarball.  Then, run a command like this:

  gpg --verify dezyne-2.18.0.tar.gz.sig

If that command fails because you don't have the required public key,
then run this command to import it:

  gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 1A858392E331EAFDB8C27FFBF3C1A0D9C1D65273

and rerun the 'gpg --verify' command.

Alternatively, Dezyne can be installed using GNU Guix[5]:

  guix pull
  guix install dezyne

* Changes in 2.18.0 since 2.17.3

** Language
  - A component can now directly refer to the state values of its ports
    from an expression (guard, if, assignment).
  - The undocumented feature of defining models and types using a name
    with an inline dotted namespace has been removed.
** Build
  - The test runner now has a `--t,--timeout' option, using a 5min
    default.
  - For C and C++, include headers are installed in <includedir>/dzn.
  - For C, a new libdzn library is built and installed in <libdir>
    on systems that have GNU pth.
  - For C++, a new libdzn-c++ library are built and installed in
    <libdir> on systems that have std::mutex.
** Verification
  - A new `-T,--timings' option now shows detailed timings for the
    different stages like: parse, normalization and mCRL2.
  - The compliance check is no longer skipped when the unreachable code
    check reports errors.
  - The `-j,--jitty' flag has been removed.
** Code
  - C++ implements directly referring to the state values of its port.
  - Lambda capture lists explicitly refer to `this' since C++20
    deprecates the implicit capture for `='.
  - The code generator backends for C++, C#, and C have been rewritten
    based on SCMackerel[9].
  - The experimental C code generator now supports blocking and defer,
    strictly single-threaded, using GNU Portable Threads[6].
  - The C++ and C runtime and code generator now use a more consistent
    coding style: the GNU Coding Standards.
  - The C++ code generator and runtime now adds the source code location
    of an illegal.
  - The C++ generated code no longer adds `check_bindings',
    `dump_tree' functions to components; Use runtime functions
    `dzn::check_bindings' and `dzn::dump_tree' instead.
  - The C++ generated code no longer generates global `connect'
    functions; Use the runtime function `dzn::connect' instead.
  - Setting the dzn_share_p boolean in a port to false, before it is
    connected, allows disabling maintaining state sharing, as well as
    strict illegal checking.  This is a (temporary) workaround for an
    interface that is more restrive than its handwritten implementation.
  - The pretty printer (code --language=dzn) now also supports most
    synthesized AST elements which is especially useful in combination
    with transformations (`-t,--transform').
  - When generating code for a thread-safe shell system, i.e., using
    `-s,--shell', the well-formedness check will now assert that
    its outer requires ports are marked `external'.
  - For languages `json' and `makreel', the `-o,--output' option is now
    honored too.
  - The `-s,--shell' option can now be used multiple times.
  - The `--language=json' output no longer implicitly remove behaviors.
** Noteworthy bug fixes
  - A verification bug was fixed that would erroneously report a
    deadlock for non-determinstic interface constraints.
  - A verification bug was fixed to correctly report unreachable code
    when interface and component imperative statement locations overlap.
  - Running the parser in `-f,--fall-back' mode now shows a parse tree
    again; a regression introduced in 2.17.2.
  - Event names can now overlap with toplevel names.
  - For C++, it is no longer necessary to add tracing to events
    implemented in handwritten code, the runtime now takes care of this.
  - The `dzn_' prefix is used more consistently in generated code to
    avoid possible clashes with user defined names.
  - When generating executable code, using an empty dollar expression
    ($$) now raises a well-formedness error.
  - The verification no longer reports a false positive defer-induced
    <queue-full> when using defer after a function call.
  - A bug in the name resolver has been fixed that would lead to a
    quadratic performance impact when looking up an undefined type.
  - Use of the unreachable code check, which is enabled by default,
    would add `tag (line, column)' arguments on the `dzn lts' command
    line, making it more prone to hit the [arbitrary 8191 command-line
    limit[7] when running `dzn verify' on a Windows desktop.  Tags have
    been moved from the command-line to the verify pipeline; Note, the
    limit on Windows remains for other user input derived information
    communicated via the command-line.
  - Building the C++ pump using the `Boost::Coroutine' library works out
    of the box again.  This was a regression introduced in 2.16.0.
  - In the C++ runtime `dzn::thread::defer' has been renamed to
    `dzn::async' and its definition has been moved to `std-async.cc'.
  - The `std::async' in the C++ pump has been replaced by `dzn::async'
    to allow selecting between `std::async' and `dzn::thread::pool' by
    either linking to `std-async.cc' or `thread-pool.cc' respectively.
    This allows working around the arbitrary limits in `std::async'
    observed on some Microsoft systems.
  - The C++ thread-pool no longer joins threads at destruction, instead
    it detaches them.
  - The well-formedness check now allows using an early return in a
    tail-recursive function.
  - The well-formedness check now allows statements after a
    non-recursive call in a recursive function.
  - A bug leading to stray verification errors was fixed for two
    triggers using the same imperative statement.
  - The simulator now correctly reports a queue-full error for a
    non-compliant component where an unbounded defer is only restricted
    by its interface constraint.
  - The C++ thread-pool now respects its resource dependencies by
    declaring members in the proper order to allow problem/error free
    destruction.
  - The well-formedness check now reports a guard statement used in an
    imperative context.
  - A bug has been fixed in the C++ code generator for a system in a
    namespace, using a component instance from another namespace.
  - A well-formedness check has been added to for `return' to be the
    final statement of a block.

Join dezyne-devel@nongnu.org and #deyne on irc.libera.chat for
discussions.

[0] https://dezyne.org
[1] https://mcrl2.org
[2] https://tue.nl
[3] https://gitlab.com/groups/dezyne/-/issues
[4] https://dezyne.org/bugreport
[5] https://guix.gnu.org
[6] https://www.gnu.org/software/pth/
[7] https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Formatting.html
[8] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/shell-experience/command-line-string-limitation
[9] https://gitlab.com/janneke/scmackerel

-- 
Janneke Nieuwenhuizen <janneke@gnu.org>  | GNU LilyPond https://LilyPond.org
Freelance IT https://www.JoyOfSource.com | Avatar® https://AvatarAcademy.com

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