The Centum Programming Language / News: Recent posts

The key to laptop repair: shaking vigorously and swearing. Even after professional repair people tell you that it can't be done. $30 later ... sigh

I am temporarily out of contact. If you need to contact me leave a note in a forum and I'll get back to you eventually. Reason: computer broken, repacement arrives on the 15th-17th.

Just a minor update.

There will be no new version of Centum released this month. Dont worry, work on Centum will continue, its just that things have been a bit hectic around here. There are a few additions to the GUI modules, but not enough to justify a new release. Also coming soon/eventually is a fast sprite module based on DirectX 8. Hopefully this will allow me to write cool little games in Centum. Something to look forward to I hope.

We have added an RSS feed to the Centum home page (thanks to Diana). Admittedly we have been a bit slow in the news department lately, but with summer approaching hopefully that will pick up.

The 0.1.4 is a performance release, with only a few new modules. The performance however is 2x or more faster. Also in this version of the release the Centum API has been fully documented with Doxygen.

Today I am proud to announce the release of the long delayed 0.1.3, mainly because I was dragging my heels. As usual this release includes all the features you know and love (see past releases for details). New to version 0.1.3 is an IDE for those of you who need syntax highlighting, spellchecking, the ability to handle multiple files, and integrated compiling and running of scripts. Also new is the Java interface. Because Centum does not have extensive libraries of its own yet we have added the ability to create and use java objects. This means with a little work anything provided by the java libraries is yours to use in Centum (you must have java installed to use this feature). Documentation on the IDE and on the java interface can be found in Centum/Module Documentation.

Look! New layout, thanks to me (Diana), your new resident web designer for Centum.

If you haven't noticed the number of developers has suddenly dropped. This is because I have just removed the oldest non-contributors from the project. I plan to keep the membership on the low twenties. So if you are working on something and you simply havent given me a stus update in a while you may want to check in so you don't get dropped. Just a heads up.

Adrien Howard has also started a blog at: http://centumide.blogspot.com where you can follow his progess on the Visual Basic IDE.

Just a few announcements for the moment. The first is the new index (see above) provided by mike, so that you no longer have to go hunting all over the manual for that one function. The second is the start of a blog in which I will keep track of the work I do every day (so that I dont become lazy). You can see it here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/centum/. The IDE should be out soon, we hope.

Besides some new functionality, including a sort module from Mike, some more string functions from Ozenc, and some performance enhancements by yours truly, the new version of Centum is a refinement of the previous version. Anything that used to work will continue to function, perhaps better than it did before. Also new in version 0.1.2 is the ability to create simple GUIs from within Centum. Although this feature is not yet documented in the manual there are a couple of examples if you wish to try it out for yourself. And as always new team members are welcome to join, especially if they wish to help the Linux porting effort.

A new windows script screenshot has been added so show the new design pattern for these kinds od scripts. This pattern should be approaching a more final state, and is much more compat than the 0.1 version.

Sitting here on my hard drive is a proof of concept module that allows a Centum script to create a window, add buttons to it, and then respond to button clicks. Admittedly it isnt much yet, but it seems promising. When I get more done I plan on re-implementing the Chat Client project solely as a Centum script. I would have posted this module as well as a 0.1.2 PR so that you could actually use it, but sadly I seem unable to upload files to sourceforge at the moment.

The Eternal Sun project (https://sourceforge.net/projects/esun/) has expressed a desire to use Centum as a server side scripting language. Of course we will not actually be contributing anything to their project until they finish their framework, but one day you can expect to see Centum scripts in their project. Hopefully if they like Centum they may use it in future projects, giving us some much needed publicity.

In case you havent noticed by now there is a second admin for the project. David will be managing the eventual Linux port in terms of posting it to the site and such. If you want to aid him with the Linux port or otherwise bother him I suggest you contact him directly. Admittedly I havent heard from David in a couple of days, but I am working on the assumption that he isnt dead.

Sander Kleykens is the newest member of the Centum team. He is fairly new to programming and thus will solely be a Centum programmer, a least until he gets his C legs (C, sea, haha, Im so funny, ahem). Hopefully he will give us a batch of new examples to help others become competent with the language. Plus as a user of the language he will be able to make practical suggestions as to what kinds of tools he needs to do real work.

Today the Centum team is proud to announce the release of version 0.1.1. Centum* is a new programming language that mixes a functional style of programming with object oriented and imperative styles. The philosophy of Centum is not to dogmatically stick to one paradigm but to give to programmer whatever he or she needs to make their work easier and more enjoyable. At the moment Centum sports multithreading, coroutines, networking ability, file system manipulation, intuitive exception handling, a two stack parameter passing system, and easy integration with c++ projects. At the moment Centum is only available on windows, but a Linux port is coming soon, we promise. It will come even sooner if you pop in and lend a hand however. Centum, it slices, it dices.**... read more

The Centum version 0.1.1 manual is available today on the homepage. With the release date for version 0.1.1 only two days away you can be confident that little will change in the interim. So feel free to read up on the new chapters, especially coroutines, which were included in earlier versions, but have only now been added to the manual (in chapter 7).

Ozenc is another developer who has joined the centum team. However he will begin actual work on the project next week since he claims he has "exams". Sure you do. In other news I have begun writing design documents about the Centum language which can be found on the bottom of this page (under the current layout) which perhaps will inspire you my loyal readers to submit some criticism of the language. Also the release date for the official version of 0.1.1 has been tentatively set for January 11.

Centum welcomes its newest member, Arunabha. Arunabha is a moderately experienced programmer, and has some skill with compilers. I have a good feeling about him. On a side not that makes two developers whose names begin with A (the other is Ashish, a.k.a. Caeser). Quickly lets have some Pauls and Patricks join but I digress.

This is not quite Centum 0.1.1, as it is missing contributions from some of the project members. However because I am anxious to get to testing some of the patches (specifically trying to solve install issues a few users suffer from). The final 0.1.1 will have some more documentation updates, as well as improved re-localization. New macros introduced in this version include catch and hex, and the lastparam byte code has been added. A full list of features will be included in the official 0.1.1 release.

Emanshu is the newest programmer to join our ever-growing team. He/she is primarily a linux programmer so hopefully we will be able to get a linux port underway. Emanshu is also the admin of the rtda project (real time data acquisition software for industrial applications). At this writing 0.1.1 is almost ready to be released as soon as I get some bug fixes from Chris. Dont worry those of you who have been working on modules, 0.1.2 will be released without too much delay, and of course your modules will be available for download separately as soon as you finish creating them. Preliminary target date for 0.1.2 is mid-late February.

Our two newest members of the Centum team are Zhang Da, who attends National University of Singapore; and David Shideler, who claims to be a little rusty in his programming. We are happy to have them aboard. Well it certainly has been a busy month for membership applications, and hopefully more developers will join us in the near future. Also as of today the Centum mailing list has been activated, and just as a extra reminder all members are required to check in by the 10th of January.

The Centum team welcomes its newest member: Marc Ferrari. Marc claims that he is new to programming, I dont know weather he is being honest or just trying to get out of doing work. Marc is also a member of the PHP-RPG project. As of this writing I doubt he knows that he is a member yet, since once again the outgoing email is on the fritz. Sigh