Gleam, the type-safe and scalable language for the Erlang virtual machine and JavaScript runtimes, has released its latest version, Gleam 1.7. Announced on January 5, this update promises to deliver better performance and package publishing improvements, making it an exciting development for developers working with the language.

One of the key highlights of Gleam 1.7 is its faster record updates, achieved through "monomorphising" record updates. This means that the Gleam compiler generates the most efficient code to construct new records on a case-by-case basis, eliminating runtime conditional logic and its associated costs. This optimization applies to both Erlang and JavaScript targets, allowing developers to update records more efficiently.

Another significant feature in Gleam 1.7 is the inclusion of a code action to generate a dynamic decoder for custom types. This addresses a drawback of Gleam's sound type system, which requires additional code to convert untyped input from the outside world into data of known types. The new code action streamlines this task, making it easier for developers to work with custom types.

In addition to these performance and usability enhancements, Gleam 1.7 also introduces more secure credential handling for the Hex package manager. Hex credentials are now only requested once, and a long-lived API token is stored in the user's file system, encrypted via a local password. This improvement enhances the security of package management in Gleam.

Other notable features in Gleam 1.7 include package namespace checking, which prevents top-level namespace pollution, and semantic versioning checks, which ensure that packages are published with respect to semantic versioning rules. The language server also offers an action to extract a value into a variable, making it easier to work with binary data.

Gleam 1.7 builds upon the improvements introduced in Gleam 1.6, which featured context awareness for errors. With this latest release, the language continues to evolve, providing developers with a more efficient and secure way to work with type-safe code.

The release of Gleam 1.7 demonstrates the language's commitment to performance, security, and usability. As the language continues to mature, it's likely to attract more developers looking for a type-safe and scalable solution for their projects. With its growing ecosystem and improving feature set, Gleam is an exciting development in the world of programming languages.

Developers can access Gleam 1.7 on GitHub, and explore the language's features and capabilities. With its focus on performance and security, Gleam is an attractive option for developers looking to build scalable and efficient applications.