9.5.0

Style Changes

This release includes some improvements to the style and naming conventions in VW. This includes using snake_case for all variable and class names, and converting most structs to classes. These style changes will be standardized and enforced in later releases.

Confidence Sequence Estimator

Confidence sequences have become the default estimators when evaluating policies in multi-model reductions such as AutoML and Epsilon Decay.

Click here to see all changes in this release

Changes

Features

• feat: integrate confidence sequences in automl and epsilon_decay by @bassmang in #4125
• feat: add experimental to python by @bassmang in #4165
• feat: Improve large actions multithreading. by @zwd-ms in #4158
• feat: [epsilon decay] add initial epsilon option by @bassmang in #4170
• feat: Model merging with delta objects by @byronxu99 in #4177
• feat: Add ftrl to dump_weights_to_json and compat CIs by @bassmang in #4193

Fixes

• fix: build issue for model merger tool by @jackgerrits in #4160
• fix: remove experimental and fix up model version test by @bassmang in #4162
• fix: test 67 windows failure by @bassmang in #4167
• fix: one_of for loss_option by @bassmang in #4178
• fix: Fix test 67 by @jackgerrits in #4194
• fix: small build fixes for LAS on MacOS by @jackgerrits in #4202
• fix: LAS unit test bug by @bassmang in #4210
• fix: quake_inv_sqrt func for aarch64 test failure by @bassmang in #4217
• fix: only remove ksvm dump_weights by @bassmang in #4195
• fix: Add native runtime dependencies to nuspec by @lokitoth in #4216

Other Changes

• chore: [LAS] code cleanup by @olgavrou in #4153
• ci: Upgrade Ubuntu version used in CI pipelines by @byronxu99 in #4161
• ci: check current VW wheel against most recent models by @bassmang in #4169
• ci: Enable test 67 with ASan by @byronxu99 in #4176
• refactor: Use github-action-benchmark for running benchmarks by @byronxu99 in #4152
• docs: Update readme for benchmarks by @byronxu99 in #4181
• ci: check model weights for gd-based tests for forward and backward compat by @bassmang in #4172
• style: resolve style issues in allreduce project by @jackgerrits in #4187
• refactor: cleanup includes by @jackgerrits in #4188
• refactor: split sparse and dense parameters by @jackgerrits in #4190
• refactor: move open_socket into details namespace by @jackgerrits in #4189
• refactor: use operators for inequality instead of custom compare functions by @jackgerrits in #4192
• refactor: remove unused type in allreduce by @jackgerrits in #4191
• ci: settle on consistent style and add warnings for violation by @jackgerrits in #4183
• style: fix style issues in config by @jackgerrits in #4198
• style: don't warn on short variable names, add static constant rule by @jackgerrits in #4196
• style: move action scores into VW namespace by @jackgerrits in #4199
• style: update allreduce to snake_case by @jackgerrits in #4197
• refactor: replace classes with structs for consistency by @bassmang in #4205
• refactor: move ccb items into VW namespace by @jackgerrits in #4204
• style: rename label_data to VW::simple_label by @jackgerrits in #4200
• ci: Fix randomly failing .NET benchmarks by @byronxu99 in #4209
• refactor: move several labels into VW namespace, style updates by @jackgerrits in #4206
• style: apply more style fixes per clang-tidy by @jackgerrits in #4208
• docs: only document public includes with doxygen by @jackgerrits in #4212
• refactor: update structs to classes with public by @bassmang in #4215
• style: style fixes in io project by @jackgerrits in #4201
• refactor: No RapidJSON in header files by @byronxu99 in #4219
• refactor: remove empty public: by @bassmang in #4220
• chore: Update Version to 9.5.0 by @bassmang in #4221

Full Changelog: 9.4.0...9.5.0