[ANN] Guile-SMC 0.3.0 released

[Artyom V. Poptsov]

Hello,

I'm pleased to announce Guile State Machine Compiler (Guile-SMC), version
0.3.0:
  https://github.com/artyom-poptsov/guile-smc/releases/tag/v0.3.0


* What is Guile-SMC?

Guile-SMC is a state machine compiler that allows to describe finite
state machines (FSMs) in Scheme in terms of transition tables.  It is
capable to generate such transition tables from a PlantUML state
diagrams. [1]

A transition table can be verified and checked for dead-ends and
infinite loops.  Also Guile-SMC FSMs gather statistics when they run.

Guile-SMC comes with a Scheme program called 'smc' -- a state machine
compiler itself.  It produces a Scheme code for an FSM from the PlantUML
format.  This tool is meant to be called on a PlantUML file when a
program with a FSM is being built (for example, from a Makefile.)

I'm hoping that it will ease the burden of writing format parsers and
other useful GNU Guile libraries for the community.


* User-visible changes

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
* Version 0.3.0 (2021-12-04)
** Bootstrap PlantUML parser by itself
   Now Guile-SMC uses itself to generate an FSM for PlantUML format.
** =(smc version)=: New module
   The module contains information about the current Guile-SMC version.
** Guile-SMC compiler now adds version information to the output file
** Add new context modules
   There are now =(smc context context-char)=.  This module defines guards
   for the whole ASCII table.
** Allow to provide custom event sources for FSMs
** Allow to set entry/exit actions for each state
** Use a logger implementation from the Guile-Library
** Order of parameters of guards and actions is changed
** =(smc puml)=: Improve PlantUML syntax checking
** Guile-SMC now allows to set a FSM description
** =smc= functionality now split between sub-commands
** =smc= now allows to generate and analyze FSM context
   See =context= sub-command.
** =(smc fsm)=: API of =fsm-run!= is simplified
** Implement "run" command
   The =smc= program now has =run= command that allows to read and run a
   finite-state machine based on a PlantUML description right away.
** Add new tests
** Documentation updated
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---


* Usage examples

I wrote an INI[2] format parser to test the foundation ideas behind
Guile-SMC from the practical perspective:
  https://github.com/artyom-poptsov/guile-ini

Also I wrote a simple PNG[3] format parser that uses Guile-SMC as well:
  https://github.com/artyom-poptsov/guile-png

Happy hacking,

- Artyom

References:
1: https://plantuml.com/state-diagram
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INI_file
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics

-- 
Artyom "avp" Poptsov <poptsov.artyom@gmail.com>
Home page: https://memory-heap.org/~avp/
CADR Hackerspace co-founder: https://cadrspace.ru/
GPG: D0C2 EAC1 3310 822D 98DE  B57C E9C5 A2D9 0898 A02F

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