1.3.7 Release

1.3.7 - 2024-02-26

Minor fix to actors that only have a main generator

[1.3.6] - (bumped, 1.3.7 was next release)

Bumped minor version number to 3 since we have dropped python 2 support.
The reason why the major version number hasn't changed is because the API
has not changed for python 3 users (yet). However the API being no longer
available for py2 users is a breaking change, so the version number should
be bumped.

This means that should I need to have security fixes for py2 I can start a
1.2.x version tree, and versions less than 1.2 can be applied for py2 by
simply searching for VER <= 1.3.0

• New features

  • Initial version of the promises API

    • guild.promise - core code
    • guild.exceptions - extracted out for clarity
    • guild.actor - uses promises in actor functions by default, extensions
      to provide a mechanism for using any regular actor function as a
      promise instead of blocking

  • Allow promises to be cancelled before execution

  • Allow an STM store to have specific custom values. The reason behind
    this is to allow correct copying of things like SDL/pygame surfaces

  • When committing a value to the STM you can now recieve a copy back of
    the updated value

  • An STM snapshot (checkout of values) can now pull updated versions from
    the STM Store. This is ala a git pull - the changes are fetched and
    merged into your snapshot. You also get a list of the values that
    have changed.

  • Update examples/sketch/pygame_test to be completely threadsafe, by using
    the new features of the STM:

    • To use a custom Value type for copying surfaces - SurfaceValue
    • to push values into the store.
    • To store requests surfaces in an STM store not a list
    • Uses the pull_updates method to update its local checkout (which
      will change when clients push changes to their surfaces). This also
      is used for updating the display when surfaces change.
    • This means the pygame_test is quickly becoming an exemplar on how
      the STM can and should be used

• New experimental things

  • Experimental sketches from guildpp merged into this codebase. (Work
    towards a currently hypothetical C++ implementation of guild)
    (This is stuff from 2019 through 2022)

• Deprecate use of "gen_process" over "main", including changing the
  following to use main:

  • guild.av.AudioCapture
  • guild.av.WebCamTest
  • guild.network.Selector
  • Docs: README.md, setup.py, site/src/index.html
  • guild.qtactor.QtActorMixin
  • examples/qt_video_player.Player
  • examples/99bottles.Follow
  • examples/blog/log_watcher.Follow
  • examples/blog/recording_webcam.Camera
  • examples/sketch/pygame_test.Display

• Python3 related updates:

  • quild.actor stop & exception handing updated
  • examples/99bottles.Follow file handing updated
  • Diched used of "six" - remove python2 support
  • examples/blog/accounts-[1,2,3].py - largedly print related(!)
  • examples/blog/accounts-stm-[1,2,3].py - largedly print related(!)
  • examples/blog/accounts-stm.py - largedly print related(!)
  • examples/blog/log_watcher - use "open" not "file"
  • examples/blog/recording_webcam - exceptions
  • examples/backplane_demo - print function
  • examples/dogs_go_woof_actors.py - remove future import
  • guild.stm.Store - locking updated to match changed API in py3.2

• Other updates:

  • guild.qtactor and examples/qu_video_player updated to Qt5
  • examples/sketch/pygame_test
    • Restructured code re tracking of surfaces
    • Then much later, lots of updates to use new features (see above)

• Code Cleanups

  • Callback maker functions (eg @actor_method) extracted from inline
  • Remove race hazard in shutdown of process_method actors
  • Ensure process_method actors stop if there's any exception raised
    withing them
  • process_methods stopped from rescheduling when stopping
  • process_methods set to stopped when they exit
  • fix examples/sketch/pygame_test to run flicker free, and cleanly under
    plasma/KDE
  • Minor change to guild.av.AudioCapture to improve capture quality &
    flexibility
  • example/av_record.py updates to list required libraries
  • Old version of actor_function removed
  • examples/blog/accounts-stm.py
    • Make timeout time match comment
    • Account checkout pulled into a separate function
    • Handle retry exception
  • Add join (synonym for wait_for) since like start() it matches the
    thread API

Various updates, including dropping Legacy Py2 support

Various updates

NB - This github release rolls up a few PyPI releases. Changelog below. (in rough chronological order)

[1.1.3] - 2017-03-23

• Added experimental "strace" style trace support
• Added some initial TCP networking tools (select based server/sockets)
  to the existing multicast examples
• Added a simple echo server and tracing/debug example
• Added overview/ref documentation of guild actors

[1.1.4] - 2021-09-03

Bunch of minor changes improving the interface.

• Enable tracing of actor calls
  Periodcally it's useful to see what's actually being transferred between
  which actors. Having this as a flag that can be set ...

  import guild
  guild.trace_actor_calls =  True
  

  ... makes this quite simple/useful.

• Update Makefile targets
  The makefile is used as an interface for a bunch of useful things to do.
  Sign posting which bits to use I think is useful, hence the updates.

• Drop support for python2 builds
  Been using python3 pretty exclusively for a while, and python2 was EOL a
  while back, so dropping support here seems reasonable.

• Process incoming messages before main loop
  These were done after the main loop. However this led to to some minor
  oddities - such as if an actor has a number of late bound methods, you
  needed a matching number of yields before you could assume they've been
  dealt with.

  It will become clear at some point whether this is a good idea or a bad
  one, but for now it's a better decision than the one before.

• When the main loop generator exits, set stop flag
  This is to match the intent - which is to run one generator and then
  stop. This may in itself be changed at some point (for example to handle
  certain sorts of state machine better - RTSP springs to mind), but for
  now this seems a reasonable plan. (It's better than the thread
  continuing to run but not actually have any work to do!)

• Allow use of main() as well as gen_process()
  It's more intuitive to use main() as the main loop (if any) of the
  actor. More intuitive than gen_process() at least - so you can
  now use main() instead. At some point gen_process() will become
  deprecated, but it's been the core name for a while, so it can stay for
  now.

• Make calls to unbound late bound methods report which one is bust
  Before was not very helpful:

  guild.actor.UnboundActorMethod: Call to Unbound Latebind
  

  How it's more helpful:

  guild.actor.UnboundActorMethod: ('Call to Unbound Latebind', <function Client.get_new_frame at 0x7fc07c3654c0>)
  

  Could be prettier, but it's more useful this way.

• Ensure that generator in main thread is a generator
  In order to run the thread mainloop, we run a generator alongside the
  interactions needed for the actor (outbound/inbound queues).

  Given that the function the user supplies must be a generator or else
  there will be subtle errors that start creeping in. So we now enforce
  this by checkin g the code object before starting it. Raises a ValueError
  (which is perhaps wrong error) if the function isn't a generator (which
  is technically a value error, but perhaps something better might be
  useful)

[1.1.5] - 2021-09-04

Version bumped to keep ppa packaging happy.

(not released to pypi since changes to primarily keep Launchpad happy)

[1.1.6] - 2021-09-04

Version bumped to keep ppa packaging happy.

• Update stdeb.cfg for python3 building on launchpad properly

  • Incorrectly still assumed python2 build environment.
  • Bumped version suite
  • Incorrect dependencies removed
  • Correct dependency AND build dependencies added
  • Python version bumped to match current state"

• Fix RST formatting in doc string
  Previously used a heading line that was informally accepted by
  PYPI RST parser, but is now rejected. Fixed.

(not released to pypi since changes to primarily keep Launchpad happy)