From cd181fcecf3c0b81a48175f49b4d24a3f09e7a8b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Sam Atman
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2026 09:01:30 -0500
Subject: The NEWS

---
 NEWS.md | 84 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 83 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 0ccf151..c484b62 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,5 +1,87 @@
 # News
 
+## zg v0.16.0-pre Release Notes
+
+This brings another major change to `zg`, touching basically everything.
+
+The `zg` modules no longer require allocation to use.  Everything is
+kept in static memory, where it should be.
+
+With compression gone in the last release, the inconvenience and startup
+penalty of moving the data, already present _in_ static memory, over to
+the heap, was purely wasted effort.  Just CPU head. So that's gone.
+
+90% of the work here was done by Jacob Sandlund, who went on to write
+his own rather interesting Unicode library, [uucode][uucode], which you
+should check out if you like galaxy-brained comptime shenanigans (I
+surely do).
+
+Zig having moved on, I needed to merge that code via massage and
+copypasta, so none of the commits survive.  But it's his work, so
+thanks Jacob!
+
+I did manage to dispose of one last allocation in `CanonData`, by
+integrating Vexu's very clever [comptime hash map][chm], so, that's
+nice.
+
+### Migration
+
+Is simplicity itself: just call the module instead of calling the
+`.init` function, with an allocator, using what it returns, and
+disposing of it when you're done with it.
+
+Technically the laws of style dictate that, since these are now
+containers, and not instantiable types, they should be lowercased.
+
+I did not do that in the README.  But feel free!
+
+Pro tip: use LSP superpowers to rename the instance to the name of the
+module, then just delete the initializer.  Couldn't be simpler.
+
+### Emoji Module
+
+Also Jacob's work.
+
+[uucode]: https://github.com/jacobsandlund/uucode
+[chm]: https://github.com/Vexu/comptime_hash_map/blob/master/src/main.zig
+
+### graphemeClusterWidth
+
+@lch361 submitted a minor refactor which makes it cleaner to obtain the
+display width of a grapheme cluster.  Thanks Lich!
+
+### The Future
+
+I hope I don't jinx it, but this is the last major change I've wanted
+to make to `zg`.  I brought it up with José before he handed over
+maintainence to me, we agreed that compressing and decompressing and
+heap-allocating was one of those ideas which turned out not to pencil
+out.  Hey, it happens.
+
+Features?  There are few left, sure.  Bugfixes?  Always, of course.
+But major API changes are now unlikely.
+
+I have a "no 1.0 until Zig 1.0" policy, because no one can guarantee the
+stability of anything until that happens.  Nor is `zg` actually ready
+for a stability policy; if I decide to break apart a module, or move
+something where it makes more sense, I'm going to do that.
+
+But it is _likely_ that this is the last 'global' refactor of the
+library.
+
+## zg v0.15.2-4 Release Notes
+
+Better late than never.  The notes, I mean.  But the release too.
+
+This was primarily a matter of getting up to Zig `0.15` compatibility.
+Minor bugfixes in word wrapping, and the display width of certain
+esoteric emoji, are also included.
+
+Compression of the data was also removed.  It was removed from stdlib,
+but we could have vendored it: more importantly, it turned out to be
+basically useless.  Savings per data set were in the bytes to low
+KiB range, and startup time was negatively affected.
+
 ## zg v0.14.1 Release Notes
 
 In a flurry of activity during and after the `v0.14.0` beta, several
@@ -35,7 +117,7 @@ to use a `u64` instead, and have included an explanation of why this is
 not the solution to actual problems which it at first might seem.
 
 My job as maintainer is to provide a useful library to the community, and
-comptime makes it easy and pleasant to tailor types to purpose. So for those
+comptime makes it easy and pleasant to tailor types to purpose.  So for those
 who see a need for `u64` values in those structures, just pass `-Dfat_offset`
 or its equivalent, and you'll have them.
 
-- 
cgit v1.2.3