Dimensioned 0.6.0

Dimensioned, the Rust library that I have written for compile-time dimensional analysis, has just reached version 0.6.0! This version change indicates a full rewrite of the library, and I think that it has made it much more usable.

I first started this crate before Rust had hit 1.0, and I fairly quickly realized that what I wanted was not possible. With the advent of associated types, it became possible, and two years ago I first announced its existence. It was really a proof of concept at that point; it was lacking in ergonomics and some pretty important features.

Today, I am excited to report that I believe it is more than a proof of concept, and is ready to be used.

Here are some notable changes:

• No longer do we need a nightly compiler! Dimensioned now works fine on Rust stable, so long as it is at least version 1.15.
• Before, units were expressed by parametrizing a Dim struct. That struct is gone, which brings a couple benefits. The first is ergonomics; a meter was expressed as Dim<Meter, V> in past verions, and now it is Meter<V>. The second benefit is in Rust’s orphan rules; if you create a unit system, you now create the outermost struct, and so have full control over what you can implement for it.
• We no longer depend on std! Use dimensioned wherever you desire!
• Thanks to type macros, derived units can now be defined without a build script or the extremely clunky syntax that was necessary before.
• Unit systems! We have added unit systems and definitions for many derived units and constants. They are still incomplete, though, and an area where dimensioned should improve on soon.

If you have some time, check out the documentation, or the readme. I have tried to make these documents as clear and comprehensive as possible, but I am sure that I have failed in at least some ways.

Please feel free to submit an issue on GitHub or leave a comment on reddit or on the Rust user’s forum.