Snapcraft 2.18 has been released

[Sergio Schvezov]

Hello snapcrafters!

We are pleased to announce the release of version `2.18` of snapcraft:
https://launchpad.net/snapcraft/+milestone/2.18

With the coming of spring (in some hemispheres), the focus switched to a 
spring
cleaning mode; there are some reasons though for the version bump due to 
this
feature: deb files can now be used as sources.

Among the fixes worth mentioning are:

- the lifecycle for parts is now faster when it comes to calculating 
part dependencies.
- less time spent during *priming*.
- macaroons are now refreshed every time you talk to the store.
- `cleanbuild` now uses the built-in image remotes.
- replacement of deprecated store apis in use.
- filesets now work with remote parts.
- general fixes to match the UX.
- general fixes to the following plugins: `make`, `dump`, `python` and 
`nodejs`.

Details can be seen on the milestones page.

This release has seen many contributions from outside of the snapcraft
core team, so we want to give a shout out to these folks, here's a team
thank you for:

- Celso Providelo
- Colin Watson
- Enrique Hernández Bello
- Evan Dandrea
- James Lucas
- Jonathon Love
- Sam Yaple

To consume the latest snapcraft release on Xenial Xerus (16.04), we
suggest you install the snapcraft package from the Ubuntu Archives:

     sudo apt update
     sudo apt install snapcraft

To get the source for this release check it out at
https://github.com/ubuntu-core/snapcraft/releases/tag/2.18

A great place to collaborate and discuss features, bugs and ideas on
snapcraft is snapcraft at lists.snapcraft.io mailing list or directly in
the #snappy channel on irc.freenode.net.

To file bugs, please go to https://bugs.launchpad.net/snapcraft/+filebug.

Happy snapcrafting,
-- Sergio and the team