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What's New

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Language & Runtime

ARM processor support with JIT

VAST now officially runs on ARM® v7, v8 processors (32 & 64-bit) with JIT compilation. Various Linux® distros are already supported, and Windows® support is coming in the near future!  

Easily deploy to cloud-based instances using processors like Amazon® AWS' Graviton2, or alternatively deploy to small, single board computers on the edge like a Raspberry Pi®.

With ARM, you can take advantage of deployment targets that tend to be more cost effective and energy efficient than those that are Intel®/AMD®-based.
ARM 32 and 64 support
Core Libraries icon

Core Libraries

Unicode support library
(Unicode Standard, Version 14)

Unicode can be quite complex, so we set out to create a truly ergonomic Unicode experience for Smalltalk. We went beyond "basic" Unicode support, and instead designed an advanced implementation that focused on "Unicode Correctness" and performance.

For example, all Unicode normalization is handled automatically by default to help prevent silent errors and other issues. VAST's new Unicode strings also maintain full API compatibility with the current String and Character while using a modern, compact UTF-8 representation. Our Unicode library even allows for representational flexibility and bridging to existing string classes through the use of "Views".

To keep these features performant, Unicode strings are optimized at creation (and during usage) through SIMD algorithms, just-in-time optimizations, and copy-on-write methodologies. They provide rapid UTF-8 and ASCII validation, fast string search, and exceptional memory efficiency. In fact, validation can occur at over 20 GB/sec!

See our Unicode documentation for a full review of this libraries' capabilities.
Unicode inspectors in use

Asynchronous streams & zones

VAST continues to deliver more capabilities for asynchronous programming which can be used to efficiently expand and maintain the most complex systems.

Asynchronous streams provide data and/or events that can be used along with our futures/promises framework.

With asynchronous zones, you can effortlessly control, monitor, and share data between asynchronous activities within your program.
Example using async zones

CRC32C
(Castagnoli algorithm)

This improved algorithm has been added to VAST to provide better performance for modern processors.

Compression algorithm updates

Currency on the latest versions of ZStandard (v1.5.2), Brotli (v1.0.9), LZ4 (v1.9.3), and zlib (v1.12.0) provide performance improvements and minor bug fixes.
Development Tools icon

Development Tools

Encoding-aware workspaces

As part of the Unicode support library implementation, workspaces can now treat UTF-8 and CodePage elements within them appropriately and  allow for conversion between the two. As a result, the full Unicode 14 character set can be displayed in workspaces.
Encoding workspace demonstrated

New Unicode object inspectors

As part of the Unicode support library implementation, new object inspectors have been created that provide rich visualizations for Unicode strings, graphemes, and Unicode scalars. Additionally, properties are displayed for each code point from the Unicode character database.
Unicode object properties

Enhanced editors with full emoji support

As part of the Unicode support library implementation, the Scintilla-based code editors within VAST now offer support for full-color emoji as well as all other Unicode 14 characters. DirectWrite and GPU acceleration are now used for emoji in the editors.
Emoji shown in editor

Transcript log text-to-file output

All text written to the Transcript can now be additionally outputted to a file. Other options include turning off text display in the Transcript and only writing to a file, or turning both off, suppressing all output.
User Interface & Visuals icon

User Interface & Visuals

Windows table widget common control

Windows table control now available for a native look in VAST that provides a great looking widget for row and column data in your application.
Example of Windows table widget usage

Multi-monitor awareness

VAST will intelligently spawn new windows on the active monitor you're using, instead of on the primary screen.
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Communications & Web Dev

Streamed HTTP content retrieval

Using our asynchronous streams functionality, retrieve large pieces of streamed HTTP content, and asynchronously process these large files in smaller pieces for improved efficiency.
Demoing HTTP streams

FTP/FTPS client

Access and transfer remote files natively and securely from the VAST Platform.
Demoing FTP functionality

Seaside updated to v3.4.5

This update provides improved security with better session protection, updated REST support for API creation, full HTML5 event helpers, new MIME types, modern library bindings, and an update of Grease for platform compatibility.
Databases icon

Databases

SQLite update

Currency with the latest version of SQLite, v3.36.0.
Security icon

Security

OpenSSL 3.0 cryptography and SSL enhancements (with FIPS)

Ensure your application's security is up-to-date and supported with the latest version of OpenSSL®. We provide a high-level object oriented wrapper around OpenSSL that's easy to use, and examples are given for every algorithm we provide. Additionally, our crypto wrapper is backwards compatible with the functionality of 0.9.8 through 1.1.x. 

This updated security framework includes FIPS module support as well as more cryptographic algorithms and SSL modules.
OpenSSL 3.0 demo
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Version Control

Tonel Tools framework expanded and improved (v1.5.3)

Many new features, improvements, and fixes to Tonel tools are included in the latest release, like better support for cross-dialect migrations, and more configuration options to fine-tune loading.

See the full list on GitHub.
Tonel repo on GitHub
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Deployment

Automated Build Support (ABS)

Streamline your workflow by automating builds for regular and XD packaging through a scriptable interface.

Packaging and XD improvements

Improved performance, fixes, and several enhancements for packaging and XD workflows.
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VAST Installation

Windows 11, Server 2022 official support

Official support for the latest version of Windows and Windows Server with the VAST Platform.
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See what's coming in the next version of VAST

product roadmap

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