# RETRO 2020.01

The 2020.1 release of RETRO brings many improvements.

# Signed Releases

Starting with 2020.1, each release will include a signing key to
allow verification of the release. Additionally, each release will
include the signing key to be used for the following release so
that there is both reliable key rotation and a verifiable chain
of trust across releases.

# Tooling Updates

The HTML export for the examples has been updated. It now averages
a 7.4% decrease in conversion and a 26% decrease in exported file
size.

retro-locate(1) was added to search the `tags` file created by
retro-tags(1).

# Assembler

The assembler is now provided by Rx. This was a technical challenge,
but well worth the effort. By making it part of the kernel it has
become possible to use assembly, rather than raw bytecode, in all
parts of retro.forth. This is allowing for a significant amount of
hand tuning to the standard library, reducing the memory footprint
and improving performance overall.

Some highlights of this:

- Reduced the assembler size from 661 cells to 109 cells
- No increase to the size of the reserved space for Rx
- Renamed the `en`d instruction to `ha`lt
- Added new prefixes for working with the assembler instead of
  requiring use `as{` and `}as`.
- Deprecated `as{` and `}as` (these will be removed in the
  2020.04 release)

Example of the changes:

    (old)
    as{ 'liliad.. i #2 d #3 d 'lica.... i 'n:put r }as

    (new)
    \liliad.. `2 `3 \lica.... ^n:put

# Standard Library

I fixed all reported bugs.

As noted previously, the assembler is now in the kernel. This
allowed replacement of raw bytecode in the standard library
with actual assembly, aiding in readability and maintainability.
The use of assembly to fine tune select words has allowed both
size reduction and performance improvements.

A few words have been deprecated due to lack of use and will be
removed in the 2020.4 release:

- prefix:"
- "

# Nga

I reorganized the source tree. This separates the implementations
by language and tries to keep things better structured. The Forth
code for the I/O devices is now in a separate directory, allowing
it to be more easily shared across implementations. Bugs related
to the numeric range queries were fixed.

The JavaScript implementation has seen a number of changes. Dead
code was removed, the formatting was redone to ensure consistency,
a framebuffer device was added, and performance was improved. The
code now consists of multiple files, making editing easier, and
the interface layout has been updated.

Testing with the optional 64-bit cells has been completed and no
issues were found.

# Retro on Unix

I added an `s:get-word`, removed some deprecated words, and updated
the memory limits to reduce overall memory usage under the default
configuration.

# Documentation

The documentation has been updated, adding in new examples, removing
material that is no longer relevant, and several new sections were
added.

# Examples

New examples:

- HTTP GET via sockets
- HTTP POST via sockets
- enum
- minimize (from Kiyoshi)
- fifo queue

Updated:

- Gott example (from Kiyoshi)