Will the IN compiler be released?

Authoring Inform 7
1

[First, a quick disclaimer. I’m relatively new to IF, and the only reason I’m even asking about this is that I enjoy reading documentation I don’t really understand. So sorry if I’m getting something wrong.]

On the Inform 7 website, it states (under sources, webs, ni ): “Not yet published. This is the largest and the most experimental of Inform’s components; a long-term project of rewriting and clarifying ni for publication is now, as of April 2009, about two-thirds done.”

So, will it ever be published? Will this description ever be updated? I’d like to see a copy of it published, and preferably documented. It would be interesting, and I don’t like the idea of having things permanently secret (although I understand that there are sometimes reasons that things must stay unpublished, especially while the kinks are still being worked out). The other components that are unpublished are minor, but this is a rather core part of Inform.

2

Last time I asked Graham (early this year), he said the same thing: he intends to release the source code when he finishes cleaning it up.

3

So it’s been in cleanup since 2009? That’s… a long time. I know the code is probably huge, but why would it take that long?

4

You’d have to ask Graham.

5

This might be of interest.

6

I think we must all remind ourselves that despite I7’s professional quality, it is really just a hobby of Graham’s and a very small group of helpers.

7

I’d also like to point out that since 2009 the change logs (and Graham’s scattered comments) have several times mentioned complete or major rewrites of significant parts of the compiler. So I think the “cleaning up” hasn’t just been little tweaks - a lot of development is still happening, even though the language itself hasn’t changed much.