[Developers] NEWS file

[Arni Magnusson]

Apart from the README file, I suggest we have a NEWS file listing all the 
user-visible changes in each version of ADMB. This is standard in similar 
software.

The same NEWS file should cover all versions. Something like this:

---

CHANGES IN ADMB VERSION 11.0:

   SIGNIFICANT USER-VISIBLE CHANGES:

     * The compilation scripts (adcomp, adlink, admb) compile in
       "safe" mode by default.

     * [anything that works differently from before, given the
       same input]

   NEW FEATURES:

     * Functions from user-contributed packages can be loaded from
       directory 'contrib', [maybe indicate how that is done].

     * New class 'init_table' to read input data into a matrix.

     * New function sumsq() to calculate sum of squared values,
       equivalent to norm2().

     * New constant PI for 3.141593... Makes models more portable
       than using M_PI or other compiler-specific constants.

     * New shell command 'ad2csv' to write binary files to screen
       or to a file.

     * [many more]

   DEPRECATED AND DEFUNCT:

   INSTALLATION:

     * [not the whole installation procedure, only how the
       procedure has changed]

   BUG FIXES:

CHANGES IN ADMB VERSION 10.1:

CHANGES IN ADMB VERSION 10.0:

CHANGES IN ADMB VERSION 9.1:

etc.

---

One NEWS entry can be several paragraphs if needed.

Generally, NEWS files don't explain much about how new features are used, 
since that should be covered in the manual.

I would find a NEWS file tremendously useful in ADMB. Both as a developer 
and as a user. I'd like to try some of this new stuff in my work.

If we want to be easy on ourselves, we could just focus on the upcoming 
11.0 NEWS right now, since those entries are the most important. We can 
work out the old entries later. Luckily, the old repository still provides 
svn log access.

I have just committed the NEWS template above to the repository, but it's 
not included in the build yet. If you can describe the main user-visible 
changes that _you_ have committed (in the 11.0 section or older), then I 
think we have a valuable reference for ADMB developers and users.

Thanks,

Arni



On Fri, 6 Apr 2012, Anders Nielsen wrote:

> new random number generator, matrix exponential, init_table, init_factor