Codon Files

• Check out the release notes here: https://docs.exaloop.io/codon/general/releases#v0.19
• Check out our blog post about this release here: https://www.exaloop.io/blog/codon-019

A few quick highlights:

• New type checking engine: We’ve completely revamped Codon’s type checker to be able to cover some of the “hard” cases we couldn’t type check before, meaning Codon will be able to compile a wider range of Python code without any changes.
• Class fields are now inferred: Before, Codon classes had to define their fields explicitly. This is no longer the case, and fields can be inferred automatically, which means you’ll have an easier time running Python code containing classes directly in Codon without code changes.
• Function and class name resolution now matches Python: In Python, names of classes and functions are resolved when they are encountered at runtime and not at compile time when they are seen by the parser. Codon now matches this behavior.
• Better handling of functions as first-class citizens: Functions can now be passed around and stored more freely. For example, you can now have a list of lambdas, whereas you couldn’t before.
• Better error messages: Type checking errors will now pinpoint where and why the error occurred more accurately.
• Performance improvements & backend updates: Updated to LLVM 20 for backend code generation, which also brings many performance improvements. See LLVM 20 release notes for additional context.
• Many other features: Support for else on try statements, improved support for nonlocal variables to match Python semantics, improved format strings, among many other things.