I am pleased to announce the release of VPython 2.9, a public beta
release of what will become version 3.0. This release contains changes
that are mostly "under the hood" but allow us to extend Visual in
several new ways by replacing the Python <-> C++ language interface with
Boost.Python. The biggest immediately available user-visible changes
include:
-Docstrings for all free functions and class member functions,
-The ability to subclass existing classes in Visual for extending
existing objects in Python itself,
-A few more vector operations (see help(vector) for details),
-New classes vector_array and scalar_array: these have an interface
similar to that provided by Numeric, but it provides R3-vector specific
operations that are significantly faster than Numeric and are more
readable than the equivalent Numeric code,
-Exception reporting for calling a function with the wrong arguments is
automated by Boost,
-And an increased time to compile (sorry, but at least you only do this
once).
There is a big change in the way the C++ parts of Visual are compiled.
Rather than display the individual commands verbatim on the screen, they
are logged to a separate file cvisual/build.log.
The purpose of producing this release series is to enable existing users
of VPython to test their existing programs with the new version to
ensure that the new interface is as close to 100% backwards-compatable
as possible. This also gives existing users and educators a chance to
comment on the new interfaces, exceptions, and built-in documentation
strings. I expect to make a handful of 2.9.x releases based on your
input before naming the result 3.0.
The release packages may be found at http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jdbrandm/.
There are four packages.
Windows users using Python 2.3 should first uninstall VPython, and using
Winzip or some other utility, unpack the file vpython-msw-2.9.tar.gz to
the root drive. This download assumes that you are using Python 2.3 in
the stock configuration on drive C:\.
Existing VPython users on OSX 10.2 or 10.3 will only need to untar the
package. While in the "/" directory, issue `tar -xzf
path/to/vpython-osx10.2-2.9.0.tar.gz` (or
vpython-osx10.3-2.9.0.tar.gz). This will overwrite your existing
installation. You can list the contents of the tarball with the command
`tar -tzf path/to/vpython...`
Linux users should download the source package and follow the
instructions in the enclosed INSTALL.txt file.
I look forward to your feedback,
-Jonathan Brandmeyer
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