From: Pieter Hintjens Subject: Liberetto Vol I/6 . /|\ ------------------------------------------------------------------ / | \ -L- -I- -B- -E- -R- -E- -T- -T- -O- AUGUST 1996 - ( . ) - \ | / The Libero Newsletter Volume 1 Issue 6 \|/ ------------------------------------------------------------------ ' Copyright (c) 1996 iMatix - distribute freely Back issues at http://www.imatix.com Comments to: editors@imatix.com Finite State Machines - News and Views - Reader's Letters - Tips & Hints == THE QUICK STORY ---..-.-.---.-...-...--.-..---.--...-...-...-.-.---.-.-.- * Libero now generates Java - free beta kit available on request. * Run, don't walk, and buy "Dr Dobb's Sourcebook" (July/August 1996). == WELCOME .-..---.-.-.-....-----.--.....----.-.---....----.-.-...-.---...-. This month... Libero Lite! Yes, you can safely press 'DELETE' now! You'll miss nothing. Otherwise, read on... This Journal contains 100% whole-grain humourticles, with added zest and the slightest dash of sea salt. If this product fails to meet your expectations, kindly return it to the place of purchase and ask for a refund. We guarantee our work for a lifetime. We cannot, all the same, be held responsible for transcultural humourticle decay. Any lack of humor must be assumed to be non-present in the reader, rather than this Journal. Consider your position as a temporary association of otherwise independent molecules, on a small dirtball with pretensions. Then read this again. It may help. Or not. == EDITORIAL ---.-.---.-.-...--....-----.-.---....-----.-.----....---.----.. This is the 'silly season' of journalism, where nothing happens, so journalists and editors are forced to invent stories like 'Spacemen Ate My Hamster' or 'Charles Married My Mum!'. As I sat in the bath last night, wondering what I could put into this month's Liberetto, I had a great idea. Science Fiction. Okay, imagine this... A planet, DirtBall, is home to a civilization we'll call the Dirters. The Dirter society is heavily into robots. They've figured-out how to make robots that make robots, machines so small that you cannot see them individually, but together they will construct anything you can conceive. One cell on the bank of a river, correctly programmed, will build a trillion of its own, and together they will build a bridge. It's been almost a thousand years since the original robot was built, by a mad Dirter who's real work was only recognized many years later when it spontaneously built a 200-lane highway through the planet's largest urban area. The mad Dirter scientist was made into a saint, and a new calendar was started, following the traditional series of religious wars and persecutions. The Dirter society is totally based on these robots. No-one really works, except for satisfaction. Ironically, Dirters are mostly workaholics. A famous Dirter writer describes them as a 'race on holiday'. Dirters never wash dishes or clothes or put out the garbage. All matter is useful raw material for the little robots, which have no trouble playing with a few neutrons and protons to generate any specific elements they need. Criminals don't exist, since it was so easy to dispose of bodies that all violent genes were eliminated (along with a large number of innocent genes) in the first and second Religious Wars. Now, a few years before the Millennium, scientists have mastered the little robots well. One day, they make a curious discovery. The robots are programmed with a clock, which they use to self-destruct when necessary. No, that is not the Discovery, because that was already common knowledge. The Discovery is that the little clocks will all roll-over to zero when the Millennium comes. At the precise moment that the end of one year rolls into the next, every little robot will, for one tiny second, calculate that it has been around for a thousand years, which is way too long. The scientists think, but it is hard to know for sure, that the robots will probably just self-destruct. Not a real problem, except that no-one has ever actually *made* one the things, except for the unnamed original mad scientist. End of millennium - no more robots - end of Dirter society. Now, I have a couple of possible endings... The scientists manage to build a robot from scratch, although it's kind of unstable, and probably will not work in time. Alternatively, they decide to change the clock mechanism in every one of the googol robots out there, which means creating a virus that has to spread... It's uncertain that it will work, but it seems to be the only option. What really happens? Well, the news gets out, of course, and there is widespread and serious public panic. On the eve of the Millennium, new religious wars break out. The robots survive the Millennium with little trouble (although the virus has a bug and destroys a whole lot of the little robots). But generally Dirter society recovers and people get back (eventually) to having their extended holiday. Nah, it could never happen. Pieter Hintjens Antwerpen, 1 August 1996 == NEWS ..--.-....-.-.----.-...-...-.---.---.-...-.-.---.-.--..-...-.-.---.- Libero/Java Beta Kit Available If you want to get into Java programming, this is one way. Use Libero to design the dialog, then tell it what kind of program you want. It will generate a skeleton and code for the dialog. Fill in the blanks, and write your own Java applet. To get the Libero/Java beta kit, send us an e-mail. This kit will be part of the next main release of Libero. Dr Dobb's Whatcha? Libero gets its first reference - even if we had to write it ourselves! Yes, "The Libero Development Environment" by 'Pieter, a programmer in Belgium' tells it all. Get Dr Dobb's Sourcebook for July/August and amaze your friends and colleagues. == LETTERS -..-.----.-.-...-.-.----.-.-.-...-.-----....-.--.-..-..-..--.-.-. A bit embarrassing, really, since our postbag is seriously thin as far as Libero is concerned. Lots of mail about the SFL, some about the Java kit, and even a few concerning our htmlpp tool. But Libero? Seems no-one has any questions. Probably both of you are on holiday. Well, our website is active enough. Here are last week's statistics, always fun reading: WEB SERVER STATISTICS ----------------------------------------------------------------- Program started at Sun-28-Jul-1996 01:30 local time. Analysed requests from Mon-01-Jul-1996 00:00 to Sat-27-Jul-1996 21:02 (26.9 days). Total completed requests: 14,872 (3,357) Total failed requests: 4,264 (492) Total redirected requests: 14 (5) Average requests per day: 712 (550) Number of distinct files requested: 367 (183) Number of distinct hosts served: 1,139 (298) Number of new hosts served in last 7 days: 251 Corrupt logfile entries: 0 Other logfile entries: 0 Total data transferred (in bytes): 261,947,401 (62,211,776) Total data transferred (in Megabytes): 249.813 Average data transferred per day (in bytes): 9,746,124 (8,887,396) (Figures in parentheses refer to the last 7 days). Daily Summary Each + represents 60 requests, or part thereof. day: #reqs --- ----- Sun: 838: ++++++++++++++ Mon: 3106: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tue: 2834: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Wed: 3119: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Thu: 2268: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Fri: 1873: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sat: 834: ++++++++++++++ Hourly Summary Each + represents 20 requests, or part thereof. hr: #reqs -- ----- 0: 516: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1: 791: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 2: 641: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 3: 486: +++++++++++++++++++++++++ 4: 511: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 5: 826: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 6: 947: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 7: 821: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 8: 805: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 9: 845: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 10: 944: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 11: 766: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 12: 945: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 13: 770: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 14: 691: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 15: 529: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 16: 524: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 17: 464: ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 18: 273: ++++++++++++++ 19: 338: +++++++++++++++++ 20: 358: ++++++++++++++++++ 21: 370: +++++++++++++++++++ 22: 380: +++++++++++++++++++ 23: 331: +++++++++++++++++ Domain Report #reqs: %bytes: domain ----- ------ ------ 4700: 30.53%: .com (USA Commercial) 1371: 12.18%: .net (Network) 1924: 11.80%: [unresolved numerical addresses] 904: 7.34%: .de (Germany) 776: 5.96%: .uk (United Kingdom) 845: 4.56%: .edu (USA Educational) 384: 2.87%: .fr (France) 357: 2.36%: .au (Australia) 447: 2.35%: .ca (Canada) 291: 1.94%: .it (Italy) 202: 1.70%: .fi (Finland) 246: 1.26%: .gov (USA Government) 284: 1.09%: .se (Sweden) 152: 0.93%: .be (Belgium) 125: 0.91%: .nl (Netherlands) 157: 0.90%: .jp (Japan) 96: 0.83%: .es (Spain) 271: 0.77%: .ch (Switzerland) 22: 0.74%: .pl (Poland) 50: 0.73%: .dk (Denmark) 59: 0.72%: .br (Brazil) 117: 0.65%: .us (United States) 121: 0.63%: .il (Israel) 48: 0.63%: .sg (Singapore) 47: 0.59%: .pt (Portugal) 172: 0.58%: .no (Norway) 21: 0.54%: .nz (New Zealand) 22: 0.50%: .cr (Costa Rica) 44: 0.48%: .at (Austria) 105: 0.44%: .org (Non-Profit Making Organisations) 64: 0.43%: .za (South Africa) 38: 0.38%: .ie (Ireland) 30: 0.32%: .tw (Taiwan) 25: 0.27%: .uy (Uruguay) 89: 0.26%: .mil (USA Military) 31: 0.20%: .mx (Mexico) 44: 0.15%: .su (Former USSR) 31: 0.15%: .kr (South Korea) 30: 0.09%: .ru (Russian Federation) 22: 0.09%: .hu (Hungary) 30: 0.05%: .gb (Great Britain) 26: 0.04%: .gr (Greece) 5: 0.02%: .cl (Chile) 19: 0.02%: .hr (Croatia) 8: 0.02%: .hk (Hong Kong) 13: 0.02%: [unknown] 6: : .ee (Estonia) 1: : .ro (Romania) Hello, Romania! Can we have your points please? Hello? Hello? We apologise, but Romania seems to have been cut-off. == COMPETITION ---.-.---....-..---....-.-.-.----.-.-.----.-..-.---..-.-..... In keeping with the holiday spirit, we bring you a competition. The prize is an official iMatix logo t-shirt, designed by Al McGregor himself. The competition is in the form of a practical, entertaining, and totally irrelevant question, as follows: You have just drunk the contents of a bottle of wine with some friends. One of your drinking buddies pushes the wine cork back into the empty bottle. How do you get it out again? You cannot use fire or water, nor can you break the bottle or cork. There are at least two methods we know of (long night, last night), both taking only a few minutes to execute. The answer we like most wins the t-shirt. Don't forget to tell us your address, otherwise your t-shirt will be digitalised and sent as ASCII art. Also, tell us whether you want a small, medium, large, or American size. Hmm. You can also choose white or gray. The Small Print: this competition is not open to employees of iMatix or their housepets, girlfriends, relations, or houseplants. The results will be announced in Liberetto I/7. Diagram: .-. | | <--- Empty wine bottle | | .------'\____/`-------. | | | | / \ |____ _____| / \ T-shirt ----> | iMatix | | | (not to scale) | | | | | | | | |__________| | HH | <--- Cork | HH | `-------' == TERMINATE THE PROGRAM -...---...-..----....-.---..---...-...---.-...---.- Spacemen ate my hamster. Dirtballers on holiday. Too much for you? Then you might consider taking a break. Seriously, next month we will get down to serious business again (more laughter from the back of the room). Please, don't send us that terrible UNSUBSCRIBE mail! I liked the recent poster in comp.lang.cobol and a zillion other groups who stated that 'cancellation of this message will be invoiced at $100 per go.' We could try that... Send us cash or we'll keep sending you Liberetto! == --.-.---....---..-.-.-.--...---.---....--.-.-...----.-....-.---....-.-..-