= --- === --------------------------------------------------------------------- ======= -L- -I- -B- -E- -R- -E- -T- -T- -O- May 1998 ========= ======= The iMatix Newsletter Volume III Issue 5 --- === --------------------------------------------------------------------- = Copyright (c) 1998 iMatix Corporation - distribute freely Back issues at http://www.imatix.com Comments to: editors@imatix.com Programming -- Technology -- Finite State Machines -- News -- Other Stuff == COMMENT ---...-.-...-.--...-.--...-.-...-.....---..-....--.--..-.-.---.-- Windows 98, Windows 1984? So, somewhere in western Bosnia, at a crossroads, a UN truck collides with a car from the European Union, a Bosnian army jeep, and an ambulance driven by the Red Cross. The drivers get out and start to blame each other, gesticulating about stop signs and who smashed who first. Finally the EU person says: 'Gentlemen, gentlemen! Let's settle this like reasonable people. Clearly it was a plot by the Croatians!' In the computer business it's not the Croatians or El Nino, but Mr Bill Gates who is seen to be behind every event, calamity, or minor traffic accident. In my occasional role as iMatix agony aunt ("Dear iMatix, my computer has run off with an incompatible operating system. I am desolate." "Dear Desolate, if your software really loves you it will run on any operating system. Just don't overload your boot sectors.") I get the occasional e-mail pointing-out how Microsoft is involved in (say) banking, and that we are heading for a totalitarian society where we will all be forced to sing words from Chairman Bill's memoirs to the music of the Windows 2002 start-up jingle. Time to separate the wishful paranoia from the facts and see if the undoubted megalomaniac tendencies of MS Corporation really pose a threat to the values we hold so dear. First off, remember that MS is the prodigal child of IBM, and learnt its main lesson from IBM: where there's a market, control 85% of it. IBM was the past master of this strategy, and like MS, was subject to eternal battles with the US Justice Department over the methods it used to eliminate rivals, corner customers, and manipulate markets. IBM itself inherited these skills from NCR. And so on. Plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme. Secondly, technology's role in this affair is definitely ambiguous. Sure, it gives the giant corporations the means to manipulate ever larger and deeper markets. But it also gives the consumer the means to resist this. The PC was a harbinger of anarchy, not control. Lastly, as a corporation gets larger, it gets slower. I was pretty impressed when Microsoft recognised that the Internet possibly was a market (and therefore fell into the 'control 85%' category). IBM made the mistake of not recognising PCs as a market. It seems clear today that the Internet is not actually a market after all, but the carrier for future markets. It will be interesting to see if MS can follow, and it's fun to speculate on what will provoke their crisis. Free software, the Millenium Crash, or a return to terminal-based computing? The first of May used to be marked by enormous Soviet parades of men, missiles, and machines. No longer. One thing we've learnt from the 20th century is that George Orwell's Big Brother is not just unlikely, but unsustainable too. Pieter Hintjens Antwerpen 1 May 1998 == NEWS -..--.-.-.-..--.-.-....----.-.---...---..-.-.-----...-.---.-.-.-.--- Bugs found in latest Xitami Alpha - El Nino Blamed! Despite labels bearing the international symbol for highly-toxic bionuclear waste, signs reading 'unstable alpha release, use at own risk', hundreds of enthusiastic users installed the latest Xitami Alpha and some even survived to press the 'Send' button. New Standard Form for iMatix EMails The world-reknowned iMatix Corporation Research Labs yesterday revealed their new invention, designed to simplify the laborious process of sending an email to the iMatix technical support lines. The New Standard Form, which is built around a multithreaded XML jargoniser, generates a platitudes paragraph and a problem report joined by a however flange. An example: "Hi, tech support. Xitami is really the greatest program I've ever used, I installed it and it was so easy to set-up. All my friends tell me that it's improved my looks, and my neighbour's dog has even stopped chewing my foot. "However, when I try to use the flush button, all I get is a blue screen saying 'thank you for using MS Windows' in hexadecimal. "Please reply!" Version 1.0 of the New Standard Form provides a range of over 250 platitudes and 125 rare and unusual problems. If you're interested in becoming an alpha tester, let us know now!! == FEEDBACK -..-.-.-.--....-.-.-.--..-...-.--.-....-.-.--...-.-.-.----.-.--- From: Rob Judd Subject: Studio Thanks for the [Studio technical white paper]. I have read it with much interest and now see that I was right in assuming you had a Cunning Plan in all of this free software. It is a very thorough work built on a solid foundation of experience, and I'm sure it will be a great hit. I'm not sure I agree with you about Posix, however. MS only support it (and barely, and without integration with Win32) in order to gain contracts where this is required i.e. Government. Perhaps it will improve, but their record says otherwise. Support in the console isn't too bad however. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: "Bernard D. Tremblay" Subject: Re: Liberetto III/4 Thanks. No, really. Thank you. Nononono, really. No. Nono. No, really. Thanks. No. Really. Really, thanks. oh Okay, then. Here goes: Ontic'ly ambiguous, [oops, that's photon, not electron. Enh.], Splitted pointy bit of branch. "Emic", "etic"; just what's the "."? ben == FOCUS ON TECHNOLOGY -.--.--.-...----.-.---....--.---.---....-.-...--.-.-- LRWP, LRWP... what the heck is LRWP? Invented and built by Robin Dunn of Total Control Software, LRWP is a protocol for long-running web processes. It comes packaged with the Xitami web server. A quick drawing in the sand: Speaks HTTP to browsers : : .----------. : Xitami : :----------: : LRWP : : agent : `----------' .-------' `-------. .--------------. .--------------. : LRWP : : LRWP : : peer process : : peer process : `--------------' `--------------' A LRWP peer process is like a CGI program: it accepts data from forms, prepares HTML output, and so on. Unlike CGI programs, a LRWP peer process starts once (typically when Xitami starts), and stays active. This makes LRWP really good for database applications: you only need to connect to the database once, not for each transaction. LRWP is portable, like Xitami, and lets you program in any language that supports TCP/IP. Xitami comes with libraries to help you get started in C and Python, but it should be a snap to work in Perl or Java. A LRWP peer process generally runs locally (on the same system as Xitami) but you can configure this otherwise, and run the LRWP process on any system on the network. When a LRWP peer process starts-up, it connects to the special LRWP port and tells the LRWP agent what URLs it wants to handle. For instance, a web counter can say that all URLs starting with '/counter' should be passed to it. LRWP has a couple of rough edges. For example, you have to start-up the peer processes yourself. We don't yet have many example peer process programs. But LRWP is a great protocol for building web applications. Take a look at it! == LINK OF THE DAY --..-..----...-..---.-.-.-.-----....-.-..-..-.---...-..--- http://sagan.earthspace.net/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html "Specifically, hackerdom is what anthropologists call a gift culture. You gain status and reputation in it not by dominating other people, nor by being beautiful, nor by having things other people want, but rather by giving things away. Specifically, by giving away your time, your creativity, and the results of your skill." == TERMINATE THE PROGRAM -...---...-..----....-.---..---...-...---.-...---.- the_next_event := terminate_event;