The Scripting Engine/Language "Vnano" has transited from the beta stage to the general release stage. On December 12, we have released the first general release version: 1.0.
In this article, we explain details of the above release.
At first, we briefly introduce Vnano.
Vnano is a compact scripting engine/language, embeddable in software/apps written in Java. For details, please see the following official website:
The abstract of Vnano, main features, how to use, and so on are introduced on the top page of the above website. In addition, the official guide document and example code are also published on the above website.
The scripting engine of Vnano is developed as an open source software, under the MIT License.
As explained in the above linked article, the MIT licence is a less restrictive (so called "permissive") license. Hence, you can easily use Vnano, no matter whether your project is commercial or non-commercial, proprietary or open source.
As a practical example using Vnano, let us introduce a programmable scientific calculator application: "RINPn".
RINPn has been developed in parallel with Vnano. RINPn is useful app by itself, and it also plays the role of a demo app effectively utilizing Vnano (so RINPn is also an open source software). If you are interested in Vnano at all, please try using RINPn.
On RINPn, you can define your original functions/variables in Vnano scripts, and you can use them in calculation expressions. In addition, you can write scripts performing complicated numerical computations, and easily run them on RINPn, in very high-speed. Vnano scripting engine realizes the above features of RINPn.
Next, for explaining the position of "general release" in Vnano project, Let's summarize the history of the development briefly.
Vnano project started in around 2013, as a spin-off project of a scripting language VCSSL, for developing a compact subset which is easily embeddable in apps.
However, sometimes progress of the project stagnated (almost "freezed" for some years). So let's skip some years. In 2018, we have published the first public & runnable version, on GitHub.
Then, the project had progressed steadily for a while toward the general release, and we published the first "beta" version in 2019.
"Beta" is one stage of software development, representing that the software works well in some extent, although it is not stable (may contain many bugs).
Users can use the beta versions for practical purpose if they want, but it reuire to be careful that it is not generally released.
Beta versions are published for testing software on various environment and usages, and collecting feedbacks from such users.
However, after then, progress of the project stagnated again, caused by COVID-19 pandemic and so on.
Since the second half of this year, we resumed the project on a full-scale, and it have progressed smoothly again. We released the "Release-Candidate" (RC) version this fall, and determined to generally release in this year.
Then, since the updates of release candidate versions have been converged, we have published the first "general release" version: 1.0, on December 12, 2022.
On the development of any software, the first general release is a big milestone. On the other hand, as we have seen above, there are many steps and pre-release versions before the general release. So there are only few changes from the last version (RC3).
With seeing the long chain composed of many versions from a bird's-eye view, the version 1.0 is, only a point which the developer regarded it as the version 1.0. In the level of source code, nothing changed drastically at the point, and the development will continue after the point.
We will restrict the next update, and some few updates after it, to bug fixes or minor updates for improving the stability.
The above NEVER means that we have switched the development of Vnano to inactive project. Generally, software development progresses repeating an enhancement stage and a "landing" stage.
Hence, some time after the first "landing" point: Ver.1.0, we will resume updates for enhancing features, improving performances, and so on. At that time, will inform you of the details of the updates in this "news" category.