= --- === --------------------------------------------------------------------- ======= -L- -I- -B- -E- -R- -E- -T- -T- -O- MAY 1997 ========= ======= The iMatix Newsletter Volume II Issue 5 --- === --------------------------------------------------------------------- = Copyright (c) 1997 iMatix - distribute freely Back issues at http://www.imatix.com Comments to: editors@imatix.com Infinite State Machines - Programming - News and Views - Other Junk == COMMENT ---...-.-...-.--...-.--...-.-...-.....---..-....--.--..-.-.---.-- Some weekends we load up into the iMatobile and go to the movies. Many other people get the same idea, of course, and the road to and from our local gigaplex cinema is a mess. This month they're rebuilding the intersection and advising people to leave 30 minutes earlier to get there on time. So, last time, we looked at a map, and figured-out a new route. It goes behind the port, takes a small bridge, and comes out close to the cinema. What we found was a large, new, and totally empty highway, leading up to the cinema steps. Instead of the usual 15 minutes, the trip took five. Of course, this made us jump and dance in glee. While everyone and his wife were getting road rage at the intersection, we had found a way to get to the same place, with no effort at all. The film was fun, and the drive back was a pleasure. This is the kind of satisfaction we get at iMatix HQ when we build our software. Why queue-up with the crowd when you can discover an unused freeway that takes you to the front door? Pieter Hintjens Antwerpen 1 May 1997 == NEWS -...-.---.-.---...-..-.---.-.-....-..--...--.--...-.---..-.---.--.-- Xitami 1.2b released... Dow Jones Hits New Record! In a stunning scene today, the Dow Jones hit a new record following the public release of a shining new Xitami webserver, version 1.2b. Can this be pure coincidence? We think so. Liberetto Obsessed With Webservers? Angry complaints will have hit our editorial desks tomorrow (we use the Lingala future past tense). Why no in-depth articles on Libero? Why no fine discussion about the difference between exceptions and external events? Why no jokes about coffee machines that think they're coke machines but cannot handle the temporal disruptions? Well, as usual we have a slick and convenient explanation ready... Somewhere... Heck, it was here a few minutes ago. More news at ten. Website Reaches Across The World About 600 people per week, from over 60 countries, each reading about 50 pages... that's our website. Big Al, our local website analyst, tells us that the average iMatix reader is over 15, male or female, owns or has access to a computer, and is looking for interesting information about the future of software development. Our resident usability tester, Mandy, who we want to call 'big', but cannot, since she is, and quite strong too, says the average iMatix reader is about or under 15, male, spotty, using his dad's computer, and is looking for illicit material, thinking that the reference to 'finite-state machines' in comp.lang.software-tools was a disguised pointer to tasteless GIFs. Mandy is a cynic. == LETTERS -..-.----.-.-...-.-.----.-.-.-...-.-----....-.--.-..-..-..--.-.-. More data from our SMTP-enabled server communications interface, or 'mailbox' as the technies down at iMatix AI lab would call it. > From: "Kevin McPherson Sr." > Dear Support, > Can this product handle heavy traffic on the Window 95 platform? > Thanks > Kevin > From: mike barletta > Subject: tec specs > I am looking into server programs to use for and industrial site. How > many simultaneous connections can this program support on a system > with win95, a cyrix 6x 200, 256 meg of ram, on a t connection? What > are the legal aspects of using your program for a buisness/profit? > thank you, > Mike Barletta > mbarlett@ix.netcom.com On a 66Mhz 486 with 8-16Mb RAM and a fast disk running Windows 95 and nothing else, you should be able to serve documents to 100 users without too much difficulty. (Of course depending on the number and size of documents downloaded, network speed, disk speed, etc.) Basically Xitami can pump document data down the network connection as fast as the connection can take it. On a Cyrix 200, with 256 Mb of RAM, on a T1 (1 Mbits) connection, the main limiting factor is the network. Xitami is _fast_, but we don't need to tell you that. > From: Kenneth Irving > Subject: Initialize vs. Initialise > Under Unix (any brand): > according to 'spell' initialize is correct, but... > according to 'spell -b' initialise is correct > The '-b' stands for "british". So the correct spelling is initialise. > I've included an alias spell='spell -b' in my .kshrc. :-) > > Thanks for Libero and SMT, two great tools, specially in a Unix > environment. By the way, could you explain a little further how > exceptions work in Libero. I found the documentation a little obscure, > and an example or two would be very useful. Thank you again. > Kenneth Libero betrays its non-US origins... If you never wrote a Libero program, this discussion is difficult to follow. That's what happens if you subscribe to a serious journal like this only for the jokes! Speaking of jokes, God was talking to St. Peter, and said: "Hey, Pete, I'm going to make this great country, really cool, with fertile lowlands, and breathtaking highlands where silver rivers run down the sides of mountains, and with glens that shine purple in the summer. The women will be beautiful and proud, and the men strong and bold. I'm going to give them a drink of gold, which we'll call Whisky." St. Peter thinks for a while, then replies: "But God, if you make such a perfect country, people won't need to come to Paradise any longer. All hell will break loose, so to speak!" God laughs, a deep, billion-year-old laugh, and says "Aha! Wait until you see what bastards I'm going to give them as neighbours!" [This humourticle was contributed by Big Al, who is partly Scottish, and does not reflect the editorial opinions of this journal. Several of our friends are English. 2.19% of all iMatix website activity is from the UK, and we appreciate it, people.] > From: "Michael T. Smith" > Subject: Security hole in Xitami 1.2b Win95/NT (XIW3212B.EXE) > Although paths like http://localhost/../ seem to be blocked (they > always give me the page in webpages, even after I set the root to > somewhere else), paths such as http://localhost/.../ and > http://localhost/..../ are not. > Assuming that my webpages directory is in D:\Xitami\webpages, this > means that I can get a directory listing of D: (or access any file > on that hard drive) with a URL like http://localhost/.../ . > Also, is there any way in Xitami of allowing cgi-bins to run from only > one directory? I want to restrict people from putting their own CGIs > in their webspaces and keep everything at http://hostname/cgi-bin/. > Other than that, it's a very fast web server. ;) > Michael T. Smith Uh-oh! Security holes! Do people really try things like 'http://localhost/.../'? [Ed. the answer would be obvious to anyone except the cheap staff writers we have to put-up with here.] Will be fixed in the next release of Xitami. As for running CGIs in some specific directory, there is an option for Xitami that allows this. > From: "Ambrosio Berdijo Jr." > Organization: Topmax Philippines, Inc. > To: info@imatix.com > Subject: Xitami WWW Server Kudos > I just would like to congratulate you for your very good and fast > WWW server. I have been trying out a lot of WWW servers for Win95 > (Netscape FastTrack, Microsoft Personal Web Server, O'Reilly Website > 1.1, etc) and so far Xitami is the fastest and the smallest (in terms > of diskspace consumed by the installation). > I hope to download the Xitami LINUX version (source code?) and see how > it goes up against our Apache WWW server in a 486DX4-100 Linux 2.0.30 > server. > Again, congratulations. Ain't it strange how portable software like Xitami can be faster, smaller, cuter, and generally much more efficient than alternatives that cost much more, and don't pretend to be portable. We love this little web server, because it demonstrates every day again that our ideas work. == FOCUS ON TECHNOLOGY --...-..---.-..-.-.---...-....-.-.---.-.-.---....--. This month... Generating HTML documents straight from your C code. If you looked at the SFL or SMT webpages, you may have seen that the majority of these pages are generated directly from the source code. We use a tool called 'srcdoc' for this. Srcdoc was written by Pieter Hintjens, who spoke to our raving reporter about it. Liberetto: So, Pieter, how's life? Pieter: Great. Hey, you recording this? Liberetto: No, we agreed, no photos, no tape recordings. Pieter: And only used bills, small denominations? L. Right. Now, if I can ask you a few questions... P. Shoot! L. How did you come to make srcdoc? P. It happened one Sunday. The Boss had asked me to hack some HTML pages to document the SFL library. But I wanted to go drumming. So, instead of writing the documentation, I put together srcdoc. L. So you could go drumming? P. No, it took me until about 3am before it worked. L. Right, but how does it actually work? P. We always write our programs to be _readable_. Srcdoc just takes that principle a step further. Some people call this 'literate programming'. I call it 'excellent laziness'. When we write a piece of code for SFL, we explain what it does, using comments in the code. Srcdoc takes these comments, plus the code, and whacks-out a nice HTML page. If the reader can't understand the comments, they just look at the code. L. How did you write srcdoc? P. Glad you asked that. Of course, I used Libero. I chose Perl, since it's an excellent tool for this kind of work. Perl with Libero, really a classic combination, like gin and tonic. Whisky and soda. Wine and cheese. Beer and more beer... L. (interrupting) Yeah, I see. Why is Perl so good? P. Perl is wonderful. You write some incantation like '/typedef\s+(.*)\s+\((\W*)(\w+)\)\s*(.+);/' and it does something you need a page of C code to do. Libero gives large Perl programs a nice structure. Like I said, a classic combination. L. So what can I use srcdoc for? P. It's really meant to handle libraries of code written in C. It could probably be extended to handle C++ and Java quite easily. But its real value is as an example. It was much faster to write this tool than to write the documentation directly. Srcdoc actually produces input for htmlpp, something that works nicely. L. Well, thanks for your time. P. No big deal. == T-SHIRT SLOGAN FOR THE MONTH ---.-.-..---.-.-..---.-.-...-.-....---..-.. Liberetto - Subtle Recklessness Of The Spirit == TERMINATE THE PROGRAM -...---...-..----....-.---..---...-...---.-...---. Special offer! Unsubscriptions are totally free for this month only! Yes, you can bring the whole family! Sure, bring grandma and grandad too!! There's no limit! Unsubscriptions should be used externally only. Excessive use can lead to loss of humour, hair, and those small green things you left in the sofa yesterday and which you suspect the dog may have eaten by now. This offer expires 12 April, 1974. Refunds are made in kind only, and only on presentation of a signed and stamped cashier ticker. Try one NOW!