[Ann] VAST 9.2 Now Available!

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Seth Berman

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Nov 22, 2019, 1:00:43 PM11/22/19
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VAST (VA Smalltalk) Version 9.2

VAST 9.2 Now Available!

The latest version of VAST has dozens of new features and enhancements including:

  • Significantly faster virtual machines with just-in-time (JIT) compilers
     
  • HiDPI support for Windows®
     
  • Fully featured SMTP/IMAP support
     
  • Native PostgreSQL driver
     
See full list below
 

Free upgrades to VAST 9.2 for customers with active support subscriptions.

Fully functional free trials are available for evaluating VAST.

VAST (VA Smalltalk) continues to be compatible with IBM® VisualAge® for Smalltalk. Make upgrades fast and easy using the latest migration guide.
 
Download VAST 9.2

What's New in VAST 9.2?


Major performance increase with all new just-in-time (JIT) compiler for 32 and 64-bit virtual machines!
  • Platform:
    • AArch64 joins the ARM family lineup*
    • Major FFI performance increases
    • Support for returning struct-by-value in FFI
    • Transitioned to latest Clang compiler for Windows
    • Updated LLVM code generator
    • Walkback generator provides more useful information and pluggability
    • Updated virtual machine C-interface
  • Base Libraries:
    • CSV support
    • STON support
    • Many APIs added for dialect portability
  • Graphics:
    • Full HiDPI support on Windows
    • Scintilla editor fonts use DirectWrite (GPU-accelerated rendering) by default
    • 20x speedup in PNG reading
    • PNG interlaced frame handling support
    • Updated look-and-feel of the Windows application icon, Environments banner, and splash screens
  • Unicode:
    • Kernel-level EsCodePageUtilities with enhanced Unicode conversion
    • Seaside Unicode updates
    • Grease UTF-8 enhancements
    • Iconv updates for Unix
    • Zip streams UTF-8 support for file names and comments
  • Compression:
    • Brotli compression streams
    • ZStandard compression streams
  • Communications:
    • New IMAP client
    • New SMTP client
    • SASL authentication framework
    • Mail examples
    • SstHttpClient support for HTTP requests (PUT, DELETE...)
    • Absolute/relative redirect support for SstHttpClient
    • SNI support for SstHttpClient
    • Seaside improvements
  • Security:
    • LibreSSL compatibility
    • Probabilistic Signature Schemes (RSA-PSS)
    • Server name indication support
  • Databases:
    • Native PostgreSQL driver
    • PostgreSQL database abstraction layer integration
    • GLORP updates
  • Development Tools:
    • Cross-development enhancements (XD)
    • SstDebugger now supports reading .sdf files
    • MonticelloImporter loading enhancements
    • SUnit enhancements
  • EMSRV:
    • Improvements to PAM authentication
  • Deployment:
    • Dynamic packaging rules using static code analysis for warning reduction
    • Significant reduction of packaging warnings on shipped apps
    • Seaside packaging works out-of-the-box
  • VAST Environments Launcher:
    • Copy installations to new location
    • Move Environments to a new location
    • Default editor/file explorer identifier for Linux
  • Documentation:
    • Seaside headless packaging examples in server guide
    • Stack dumping and remote debugging with Seaside documentation
    • Updated migration guide
  • Research/Development and Open Source Projects:
    • TensorFlow machine learning for VAST (tensorflow-vast on Github)
    • Git support for VAST with Tonel interchange (tonel-vast on Github)
    • Git/Tonel examples (tonel-demos on Github)
    • Docker examples (docker-examples on Github)
    • Pigpio bindings for VAST (pigpio-vast on Github)
    • Pharo to VAST porting tool (pharo2va on Github)
    • Eclipse MQTT Paho client for VAST (paho-mqtt-vast on Github)
*Beta feature: contact us for more details

Read More:

Download VAST 9.2

Thomas Stalzer

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Nov 22, 2019, 1:08:32 PM11/22/19
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!!!! VERY COOL !!!!

Ron Fucci

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Nov 22, 2019, 1:31:15 PM11/22/19
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Please advise on how to get trial creds to download (ol' Smalltalker...)

Mariano Martinez Peck

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Nov 22, 2019, 1:44:04 PM11/22/19
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On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 3:31 PM Ron Fucci <ron....@gmail.com> wrote:
Please advise on how to get trial creds to download (ol' Smalltalker...)


Hi Ron,


Cheers,
 
--
Mariano Martinez Peck
Software Engineer, Instantiations Inc.

Richard Sargent

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Nov 22, 2019, 1:46:38 PM11/22/19
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On Friday, November 22, 2019 at 10:00:43 AM UTC-8, Seth Berman wrote:
VAST (VA Smalltalk) Version 9.2

VAST 9.2 Now Available!


Excellent! Congratulations!
What are .sdf files? A Google search reveals answers that make no sense in the context of the StsDebugger.

Mariano Martinez Peck

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Nov 22, 2019, 1:51:57 PM11/22/19
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  • Development Tools:
    • Cross-development enhancements (XD)
    • SstDebugger now supports reading .sdf files

What are .sdf files? A Google search reveals answers that make no sense in the context of the StsDebugger.



.sdf files are the binary serialization of an execution stack so that you can "debug" that later on a separate machine. Kind of GemStone's continuations. 

The title "Scenario 3: running on production with binary stack dumping"

BTW, there is also new examples with it in our documentation: 



Best, 

Richard Sargent

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Nov 22, 2019, 2:02:03 PM11/22/19
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Excellent!

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Norbert Schlemmer

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Nov 22, 2019, 3:18:11 PM11/22/19
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Congrats !!!

Simon Franz

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Nov 22, 2019, 3:31:38 PM11/22/19
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Nice!!! Congratulation to the whole team!

Marten Feldtmann

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Nov 23, 2019, 10:07:34 AM11/23/19
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Nice to here so many encouraging news from a Smalltalk vendor !

Marten

Marten Feldtmann

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Nov 23, 2019, 10:09:36 AM11/23/19
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Nice to "hear" so many encouraging news from a Smalltalk vendor - and there were times in the past, where we heard
not that much from you ! But, that has changed !

Mariano Martinez Peck

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Nov 26, 2019, 8:31:54 AM11/26/19
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Thank you guys for the nice words! 
Thanks also Joachim for the nice blog post: https://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com/2019/11/25/va-smalltalk-9-2-released/

Adding to your mentioned favourites, mine are:

* AArch64 joins the ARM family lineup
* STON support
* Kernel-level EsCodePageUtilities with enhanced Unicode conversion
* Significant reduction of packaging warnings on shipped apps
* Stack dumping and remote debugging with Seaside documentation
* Walkback generator provides more useful information and pluggability






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Klaus Breker

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Dec 2, 2019, 2:47:32 AM12/2/19
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Congratulations and good news :-)
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