N30: Edict (#922)

Co-authored-by: Andréy Lesnikóv <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Joe Clay <[email protected]>

Author: 3 people

content/news/030/index.md

@@ -385,6 +385,44 @@ for expressively abstracting over user input.
 Supports local multiplayer, enables input rebinding, integrates with `bevy_ui`,
 and handles chords!
 
+### [Edict]
+
+New archetypes based ECS implementation by [@zakarumych](https://github.com/zakarumych).
+
+The novel feature of [Edict] is entity ownership implemented via reference counting.
+This optional feature allows creating owned kind of `Entity` "reference",
+that ensures entity is alive and despawns it on drop.
+Storing owning `Entity` in the component of another entity
+creates ownership relation between those entities.
+Even though `Entity` is an owning reference,
+components of the entity are can be queried from `World` as usual.
+Shared ownership is also available.
+
+Optimized for both high density `World`s with thousands of entities
+and also for `World`s with lower number of entities spread among many archetypes.
+[Edict] is aimed for wide range of game genres and use cases outside of games.
+
+Built-in change detection with epochs allows systems to query for components
+that were updated since last run of that query,
+or since any other epoch as defined by `Tracks` argument.
+This opens possibility to have multiple POV on changes even in single system.
+For example server-side netcode can track changes individually
+for each client and query for changes since last ACK.
+[Edict] optimizes iteration significantly when entities
+with modified components are queried.
+
+Although ECS abbreviation implies, [Edict] does not come
+with predefined `System` trait and systems scheduler.
+We can call it ECQ (Entity-Component-Query) as an alternative to ECS.
+
+[Edict] is added to [ecs_bench_suite](https://github.com/rust-gamedev/ecs_bench_suite)
+so anyone can compare performance in some trivial examples with other ECS.
+
+Development focus for February is making more public API, including unsafe parts,
+to allow writing custom queries, implement schedulers with parallel execution etc.
+
+[Edict]: https://github.com/zakarumych/edict
+
 ### [rafx]
 
 [![Rafx Screenshot](rafx-screenshot.jpg)][rafx-youtube-video]