NEWS

* Noteworthy changes in release 0.5 (2014-11-23)
- A SimpleInterpretedExperiment to make it easier to get up and running with
  the PlanOut language and interpreter.

- PlanOut language:
  - Standardized handling of undefined keys: indexing into a list or dictionary
    for an invalid index or key always yields null; nulls may be coalesced via
    the null coalescing operator, coalesce()
  - A return() operator for determining whether the input units are
    "in the experiment" (and therefore logged). Calling "return;" or
    "return <value with positive truthiness>" sets in_experiment to True.
    Returning a value with negative truthiness sets in_experiment to False.

- PlanOut interpreter:
  - Convenience methods for extracting and checking typed operator arguments,
    e.g., self.getArgInt('x') will retreive an argument named 'x'. If 'x' is
    not given, or 'x' is not an integer, an error will be thrown. This improves
    ease of debugging, and also provides a clear path for those who are
    implementing the interpreter in strongly typed language.
  - Improved argument checking for built-in operators.

- PlanOut editor: the PlanOut editor is a reactive development environment and
testing system for PlanOut-language experiments.

- Breaking changes:
  - Namespaces: when a unit is assigned to an experiment and in_experiment is
    set to False, the default experiment is executed.
  - PlanOut interpreter:
    - The length() operator's argument is now 'value', as to allow for unnamed
      arguments to be passed in.
    - Min and max are now required arguments for randomInteger and randomFloat
    - Deprecated validate() and options() methods
    - Deprecated self.parameters for operators: self.args refers to arguments
      passed into an operator. If an object is a subclass of SimpleOp, then
      the arguments are pre-evaluated (and act just like self.parameters).


* Noteworthy changes in release 0.4 (2014-10-29)
- Full support for parameter overrides, which allow for testing of PlanOut
  experiments
- Alpha version of PlanOut editor
- Bugfixes to how the PlanOut compiler handles indexing into arrays multiple
times (e.g., a['b'][1][0])


* Noteworthy changes in release 0.3 (2014-06-18) [alpha]
- IMPORTANT UPDATE: The hash function used in prior versions did not match the expected behavior in the documentation (caught by @akalicki). We have updated PlanOut's hashing function, which will likely cause units to be randomly assigned to different parameters. If you are already using PlanOut in a production environment, please upgrade with care. If you are not currently using PlanOut in a production environment, please upgrade immediately:

  pip install -U planout

- Other updates:
  -The assign() method is now only called once. Thanks to @akalicki for catching this.