November 2023 Workshop Release Notes

[Denneisk]

Here's the November 2023 newsletter! We've got a ton of fixes and additions to Wiremod that I'm sure will ease your nerves, in case you were concerned about last month's update. Thank you truly to everyone who submitted bug reports and contributed this month!

CPU Resurrection!

CPU users rise up! We've received a lot of contributions from community contributor DerelictDrone for Wire CPUs, who has single-handedly decided to bring CPU back from the dead. Not only have there been fixes for long-standing bugs, but also new additions that makes CPU coding so much better. DerelictDrone stated that his goal was to inspire the community to pitch in, so feel encouraged to help out in any way you can! In his words, "I'm not even like, a seasoned lua developer or nothing so it almost feels like anyone could've done it really." If you haven't checked out the CPU repo and are interested in trying them out, now is the perfect time! With these contributions, we've considered CPU may be ready to come back onto the Workshop, so stay tuned to hear more about that in the coming weeks!

Next Stop: Lambda Complex

Now onto the E2 side, Vurv has once again flipped E2 on its head by revolutionizing how functions work. First off, compile-time functions. Pretty simple: functions defined the normal way are now generated at compile-time. This means they're faster to call and create, but they're no longer able to be overriden. That's okay, however, since this second change is all about that part; lambda functions. If you're unaware, lambdas are functions objects that can be used like and assigned to variables. If you've used string calls before, well, don't, because now we have lambdas, and they're better, but lambdas do a similar thing to string calls. You can use a lambda pretty intuitively just like the old string calls. (Also, check out the new let keyword. It's just like local, but shorter.)

let SayHello = function(Name:string) {
	return ("Hello, " + Name)
}

print(SayHello("Wiremod!")[string])

But lambdas are especially cool because they're real functions, not just strings. If you're curious on all that cool stuff you can do with lambdas, well, we'll keep it short here, but you should definitely check out the Syntax, Pull Request, and the Wiki Guide to see just how much better they are.

And to top that all off, we've got plenty of smaller additions and fixes all over Wiremod, which you can find in the full changelog on the Github. Some of you may be particularly enthused to hear that the $ delta operator has been fixed—for real, now. We've also had a rewrite of the number extension which includes some much-needed performance improvements, a new keybind to the E2 editor, getters for holos' angle and position, and a lerp function to replace mix for vectors.

That does it for this month's changelog. Don't forget, the Canary branch gives you early access to these features (and any hitches that may come with them). See you here again hopefully in a month!

Full changelog:

Wiremod

Additions

• Added reading and writing offsets to Address Busses

Changes

• Modified Workshop Wiremod version to be based off of Github commit hash
• Reduced filesize of various materials (Community contribution from Redox)

Fixes

• Fixed certain entity force gates could be used on players (Community contribution from Aws0mee)

Expression 2

Additions

• Added function lambdas to replace string calls
• Added hexadecimal and unicode string escapes using \x and \u{}
• Added keyword let as an alternative to local
• Added getExtensions and getExtensionStatus to query for enabled E2 extensions on the server
• Added E2 editor CTRL + BACKSPACE to remove leftmost word from the cursor (Community contribution from Smigg-y)
• Added functions holoAng(number) and holoPos(number) to get holo angle and position (Community contribution from bjcscat)
• Added lerp(vector, vector, number) to replace mix
• Added constant _INF to represent infinity

Changes

• Modified functions to be a compile-time construct
• Global variables no longer reset on @strict
• Changed EGP TextLayout to be able to drawn "top left"
• Improved compiler error message when using dynamic functions in expressions
• Now allows multiple @persist definitions of the same variable name and type
• Improved various vector functions
• Improved and optimized number extension
• Decreased op costs of radian trigonometric functions from 2 to 1.5
• Made all math functions nodiscard
• Decreased op cost of toString(number) from 15 to 5
• Decreased op cost of toString(number, number) from 25 to 10
• Array indexing now marks variables as used

Fixes

• Fixed delta operator not functioning
• Fixed EGP Polys didn't properly position when parented
• Fixed EGP Circles could be drawn "top left"
• Fixed EGP Wedges would error
• Fixed setName would error despite waiting 1 second
• Fixed E2 editor CTRL + L would error on an empty line (Community contribution from Smigg-y)
• Fixed minor issue with indexing vector4 and quaternion types
• Fixed changed on angles wasn't defined properly
• Fixed break in switch statements nested in loops didn't break out of the switch statement
• Fixed EGP TextLayout would render oddly in top left mode
• Fixed EGP would create objects when removing them
• Fixed egpobject:getVertices would error on objects without vertices
• Fixed improperly defined convars in constraintcore
• Fixed runOnSpawn could not be disabled
• Fixed log2 would error

Removals

• Removed ability to override user-defined functions
• Deprecated string calling
• Removed the ability to name functions as "function"
• Deprecated mix(vector, vector, number)
• Removed temporary polyfill for bezier functions
• Deprecated constant-like functions e(), inf(), and pi()

CPU

The following have all been community contributions by DerelictDrone, thank you very much!

Additions

• Added ability to zap by range
• Added ability for pragmas zap and preserve to zap or preserve ranges
• Added STERR and CLERR instructions to set and clear error code
• Added pragma flag NewIfDefs to select ifdef behaviour between new and old
• Added compiler warnings to editor with extra warnings
• Added pragma silence to mute compiler warnings in editor
• Added the ability to pass and return structs with functions
• Added the ability to reassign similarly-sized structs
• Added LOOPXY instruction
• Added new examples to demonstrate interrupts, segments, and stacks

Changes

• Changed ZVM instructions to use format strings instead of concatenation
• Expanded busy register list
• Optimized complex memory access
• Improved various warnings

Fixes

• Fixed zapping by register name
• Fixed #ifdef to evaluate properly
• Fixed nil error with dereferencing labels
• Fixed zapping and preserving would erroneously parse unrelated lines
• Fixed GPU on HUD would not render properly when not looking at GPU
• Fixed interrupt flag 8 would improperly set PTBE to 1

AdvDupe2

Changes

• Cleaned up formatting issues (Community contribution from dvdvideo1234)