From: Pieter Hintjens Subject: Liberetto Vol I/1 . /|\ ------------------------------------------------------------------ / | \ -L- -I- -B- -E- -R- -E- -T- -T- -O- MARCH 1996 - ( . ) - \ | / The Libero Newsletter Volume 1 Issue 1 \|/ ------------------------------------------------------------------ ' Copyright (c) 1996 iMatix - distribute freely http://www.imatix.com Comments to: editors@imatix.com Insults to: flames@imatix.com == EDITORIAL --.-.----...-.-....-.-.--..-.-.-..-.--....-.-.-..-.---..-.-..-. Welcome to LIBERETTO volume 1 issue 1. Until we get comp.tools.libero set up, this is the horse's mouth for Libero trivia, news, and reader's letters. [How about alt.fan.libero? - Ed.] Since we put Libero on-line at the start of February, we've had a great and heart-warming response. Thank you all for your letters and comments. Libero is free software, and will always be free software. You can use this tool in any project, without risk or charge. When you hand-over your work to your colleagues or clients, you can give them Libero at no cost or risk. Libero is a key part of our toolkit: we will support and and improve Libero as long as we are here. And when we have news about fixes and extensions, you'll be the first to know about it. Pieter Hintjens Antwerpen, March 5th, 1996 == NEWS ..--.-....-.-.----.-...-...-.---.---.-...-.-.---.-.--..-...-.-.---.- Libero site at www.imatix.com takes off... Some 5000 requests per week, 400 distinct hosts served, 35 countries. Coming to a screen near you soon! If you haven't taken a look, surf to http://www.imatix.com now. Shock Horror Probe at iMatix Website... Server implicated in affair with barmaid! 'I was just a moment's diversion', sobbed gorgeous Mandy, 23. More news at six! Documentation coming online... The gnomes are taking extra caffeine, and working double-time to get the whole Libero documentation on-line fast! Yes, we've even put lovely Pearl (aged 5) to work on the links and tables of contents. Should be ready by the time the chicken has crossed the road. Libero 2.12 platinum beta out now... The version Microsaft(tm) refused to purchase! Yes, they did *not* buy the license for this! 'It's not for sale at any price!', iMatix guru and chief coffee-maker Pieter told our brave reporter. Turn to the business section for more news. == LETTERS -..-.----.-.-...-.-.----.-.-.-...-.-----....-.--.-..-..-..--.-.-. Extracts from some of the kind and generous mail we have been getting. This is not irony. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >From: Jan paimo >Subject: Libero >Hi Pieter >Are you planning to provide the documentation file in any other format? >I would be happy about a plain textfile... >Best regards >Jan Paimo Since Jan wrote me, we offer the documentation in various formats. But, these are all water in the wind. Yes, I have seen the future, and it's spelt "double-u ee bee". (That's "way-ey-bey" for you Europeans, except the Dutch who can try "vey-ey-bey".) Be that as it may, I've decided to maintain the documentation as HTML from now on. When finished, there will be 60 or so files, interlinked into a nice little package. You can browse on-line if your daddy's rich, or download the whole package from: http://www.imatix.com/pub/libero/doc/lrhtml.zip. Nice stuff: you unzip it onto your hard disk (don't tell me you can't find unzip - go look for it!), point your browser at the index file, and off you go! You can use Lynx, or a graphical browser. We will also provide an 'exploded' version of the entire documentation in one file, for easy printouts. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >From: bdwheele@indiana.edu >Subject: Libero v2.10 >I have to admit that this is one of the coolest tools I've used in >a very long time. I have a few questions, however: > 1) This is more of a bug report. Print & related functions don't > seem to be implemented in the windows version > 2) Will there be an X based editor? > 3) How does one pronounce "libero"? This has caused a bit of > confusion around here >Even though I've only been playing with it for a few hours, I can see >where this tool would be amazing in creating web based applications. >I've taken the structure of one of my web programs and I'm re-writing >it using Libero as the skeleton. >Again, this is a very cool tool, and I'm very glad to see it under GPL! >Brian wheeler Yes, the latest Windows version prints like it should. So much to do, so little time... Hey, Brian, this is a cool letter. I'm very glad that you can see the potential for web-based applications. Send me an example when you get something running. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >From: michal@ellpspace.math.ualberta.ca (Michal Jaegermann) >Subject: Re: iMatix Website is Back Again >Hi Pieter, >I was disappointed a bit that you decided to cut-off an access to >ftp site. Instead of getting everything in one scoop I had to >point-click-wait, point-click-wait,... On the top of it you decided >to separate examples archive. Sigh! No big deal. >I had a bigger problem with your documentation. When I tried to feed >your supposedly Postscript file into a rather picky but very conforming >Postscript interpreter supplied by NeXT I got immediately 350k of >error messages in my log and not a single page which would not be >empty. >One more thing I noticed in your docs. Contrary to what you maintain >ksh is not so popular that you can expect it on every Unix machine >around. For some 15 I am dealing with quite regularly only three >have ksh installed. This would be not so important if not the fact >that your install scripts are ksh based. Most likely bash will accept >them as well, but this is not on every machine either. You can >safely assume a presence of /bin/sh (Bourne), but this is it. >Best regards, >Michal In a few month's time the iMatix site should get an upgrade to a T1 line, which will let us support ftp accesses again. Right now this is simply too heavy. Hey, contributions for a larger system are welcome! Dollars preferred, VISA/MC also accepted. [Is this true? - Ed.] Point taken about the examples: by the time you read this you can get either the individual example archives, or the whole set in one go, by downloading http://www.imatix.com/pub/libero/example/complete.zip. I intend to add to the example set as time goes on. If you had trouble with the ksh install script, you'll be happy to know that I made a Bourne sh version (install.sh) which is now part of the UNIX binary and source kits. I used a UNIX script a bit like this: echo Generating install.sh... awk '/^function/ { print $2 " ()"; next } { print $0 }' < install.mod > install.sh.mod lr install -schema=lrschema.sh -source=install.sh.mod chmod +x install.sh - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >From: p.varn@genie.com (Paul R. Varn) >Subject: Thank you for Libero >I've downloaded your Libero materials for Windows. I was delighted by >your explanations and look forward to learning about your tool. >Learning to program has always been a tripping rock for me though Perl >has given me hope that some day I may get something out of it. >My first impression is that you and Larry Wall have a lot in common. >The world became a nicer place to live today. >-Pv- I'll let you into a wee secret, Paul: Perl is maybe not the ideal place to start. It's a great place to end-up, but a little rich for an intro. Why don't you look at Awk? This is a clean, small, and useful language that you'll be happy you learnt anyway. Libero works with Awk, and Perl contains most of Awk. I like GNU Gawk myself. There's a good example at http://www.imatix.com/pub/libero/example/erbot.zip. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >From: john.zahniser@gsfc.nasa.gov (John Zahniser) >Subject: Invalid Property Value >Peter, >Downloaded Libero 2.11 for windows and I get an Invalid Property Value >error when I try to execute the program. Am I doing something wrong? I >downloaded the two files to a temp dir then unzipped them to a home dir >and added it to the path statment in the autoexec.bat file. Should there >be an ini file for the windows version as there is in the dos version? >John Zahniser Libero for Windows seems to have problems on some PCs. I don't have a fix, except to try another PC. The problem may be: - not enough free resources (Libero/Windows is *greedy*); - weird graphics cards (try using 256-colour mode); - version problems (are there older versions of the .VBX or .DLL files lying around on the PC, perhaps in /win or /win/system?) If in doubt, reformat the hard disk, re-install DOS and Windows, then try again. [I think he is joking - Ed.] == COMMMENT ---.-.-..--....-.---....-.-.-..-...-.-.....---.-.-..-.-.--..-.-. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Libero site at www.imatix.com takes off... These are the server statistics for February: Analysed requests from Thu-01-Feb-1996 01:14 to Sat-24-Feb-1996 23:46 (23.9 days). Figures in parentheses refer to the last 7 days. Total completed requests: 9,657 (4,829) Total failed requests: 242 (154) Average requests per day: 413 (712) Number of distinct files requested: 59 (45) Number of distinct hosts served: 967 (408) Number of new hosts served in last 7 days: 334 Total data transferred (in bytes): 175.0Mb (125,5Mb) Average data transferred per day (in bytes): 7.3Mb (17,9Mb) Daily Summary day: #reqs '+' represents 50 requests Sun: 731: +++++++++++++++ Mon: 1331: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tue: 1176: ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Wed: 1272: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Thu: 2203: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Fri: 1973: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sat: 971: ++++++++++++++++++++ Hourly Summary [Universal Time (GMT), as far as I can see - Ed.] hr: #reqs '+' represents 15 requests 0: 502: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1: 552: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 2: 558: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 3: 495: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 4: 432: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 5: 412: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 6: 487: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 7: 515: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 8: 392: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 9: 392: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 10: 345: +++++++++++++++++++++++ 11: 212: +++++++++++++++ 12: 269: ++++++++++++++++++ 13: 331: +++++++++++++++++++++++ 14: 194: +++++++++++++ 15: 192: +++++++++++++ 16: 301: +++++++++++++++++++++ 17: 477: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 18: 349: ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 19: 334: +++++++++++++++++++++++ 20: 339: +++++++++++++++++++++++ 21: 476: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 22: 585: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 23: 516: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Domain Report #reqs: %bytes: domain 2933: 28.43%: .com (USA Commercial) 694: 10.23%: .net (Network) 1053: 9.12%: .edu (USA Educational) 669: 7.85%: .uk (United Kingdom) 887: 7.66%: [unresolved numerical addresses] 560: 5.82%: .de (Germany) 368: 5.32%: .ca (Canada) 240: 3.03%: .nl (Netherlands) 182: 2.61%: .au (Australia) 282: 2.28%: .gov (USA Government) 207: 2.11%: .it (Italy) 185: 1.80%: .se (Sweden) 121: 1.78%: .org (Non-Profit Making Organisations) 192: 1.71%: .fr (France) 132: 1.33%: .fi (Finland) 106: 1.24%: .at (Austria) 125: 1.08%: .be (Belgium) 144: 1.06%: .jp (Japan) 95: 0.79%: .no (Norway) 46: 0.71%: .za (South Africa) 27: 0.51%: .mil (USA Military) 14: 0.44%: .hk (Hong Kong) 25: 0.43%: .es (Spain) 34: 0.40%: .nz (New Zealand) 7: 0.38%: .ru (Russian Federation) 29: 0.34%: .br (Brazil) 69: 0.33%: .ch (Switzerland) 25: 0.30%: .dk (Denmark) 21: 0.20%: .su (Former USSR) 39: 0.19%: .il (Israel) 12: 0.18%: .ar (Argentina) 28: 0.06%: .sg (Singapore) 16: 0.06%: .hu (Hungary) 4: 0.06%: .tw (Taiwan) 23: 0.04%: .ie (Ireland) 15: 0.04%: .us (United States) 12: 0.04%: .pl (Poland) 12: 0.02%: .cz (Czech Republic) 7: 0.02%: .int (International) 10: 0.02%: .ee (Estonia) 3: 0.01%: .ro (Romania) 4: 0.01%: .gr (Greece) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Libero 2.12 platinum beta out now... If you have had trouble compiling Libero 2.11 on your system (especially Sparc with GNU gcc), try this new archive: http://www.imatix.com/pub/libero/src/lrsrc212.zip or .tgz. We've improved the 'universal include file' prelude.h. Functionally it is identical to 2.11. This beta will not be accessible from the Web pages until it's been well tested. == IN THE NEXT ISSUE ..-.-...-.-.....-.-.-..-....---.-.--..---.--.----...-.- Multithreading... Seem's it's simple. We present a new way to write portable multithreaded programs, with an example TCP/IP server in C. OS/2...? Ewen McNeill reports on his port of Libero to this system.