;;; ANNOUNCE-5.01.mhtml: -*- Meta-HTML -*-  Release announcement for 5.01.

;;;  Copyright (c) 1996 Brian J. Fox
;;;  Author: Brian J. Fox (bfox@ai.mit.edu) Mon Sep 23 03:30:50 1996.

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  <topic Meta-HTML 5.01 Source Release>

  Version 5.01 of Universal Access Inc.'s <Meta-HTML> distribution is now
  available via anonymous FTP from

  <ul>
    <a href="ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/metahtml-5.01.tar.gz">
      ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/metahtml-5.01.tar.gz
    </a>
  </ul>
      
and

  <ul>
    <a href="ftp://ftp.metahtml.com/pub/source/metahtml-5.01.tar.gz">
      ftp://ftp.metahtml.com/pub/source/metahtml-5.01.tar.gz
    </a>
  </ul>

  This release contains bug-fixes to the 5.00 release; almost
  exclusively in configuration, compilation, installation, and
  documentation.

  <hr width=60%>

  <topic What is it?>

  <Meta-HTML> is a programming language specifically designed for working
  within the World Wide Web environment.  Although it is a genuine
  programming language, suitable for large-scale symbolic manipulation,
  it provides the most commonly wanted Web functionality as built-in
  primitives, so you don't have to write them.  You can find out more
  about the theory of implementation in
  <a href="http://www.metahtml.com/meta-html/manifesto.html">
  this white paper</a>.

  Web pages are authored using HTML and <Meta-HTML> statements freely
  intermixed.  When a page is requested by a browser, the page is passed
  through the <Meta-HTML> engine, which dynamically processes any
  <Meta-HTML> statements to produce a final HTML page which is delivered
  to the browser.

  The source distribution provides several different interpreter options:

  <ul>
    <li> A CGI engine which can be run by any Unix Web server,
    <li> A full-featured Web server (mhttpd) with the interpreter built in,
    <li> A standalone processor, much like Perl or Tcl, and
    <li> An interactive debugger, with a feel similar to GDB (mdb)
  </ul>

  The server and engine have been designed such that it is transparent
  to <Meta-HTML> which one is in use.  URLs do not need to contain
  "/cgi-bin/" in them; they simply look like standard document
  references.

  In addition to flow-control, arithmetic operators, and relational
  operators, <Meta-HTML> provides the following Web application
  features:

  <ul>
    <li> Stateful sessions, with or without browser cookie support,
    <li> GDBM database storage, retrieval and searching,
    <li> Network and file system streams,
    <li> Macros and functions, so that you can write new tags,
    <li> Interface to the MSQL database system,
    <li> File upload and download over HTTP/1.0 connections, and
    <li> Extended regular expression syntax in string operations
  </ul>

  Why two database interfaces?  The GDBM database interface allows
  unlimited variable length free-format records, compiles on virtually
  every platform, is completely free, and is simple and lightweight.
  The MSQL database interface allows SQL queries, fast searches over
  large amounts of data, and is in wide use today.  It just seemed
  natural to support both.

  <hr width=60%>

  <topic E-Mail Addresses and URLs>

  Bug reports for <Meta-HTML> should be sent to
  <email bug-metahtml@metahtml.com>.<br>
  Bug reports for the documentation should be sent to
  <email bug-manual@metahtml.com>.

  There is a user mailing list: <email metahtml-users@metahtml.com>.  You can
  <a href="http://www.metahtml.com/e-mail-profile.mhtml">
  subscribe on the Web</a>, or by sending mail to
  <email metahtml-users-request@metahtml.com>.

  Pre-compiled distribution sets are available via the
  <a href="http://www.metahtml.com/"><Meta-HTML> Web site</a>.

  We currently have versions for:

  <pre>
	bsdi-2.0-i386, hpux-10.10-hppa, irix-5.3-mips, linux-i386,
	osf-3.0-alpha, solaris-2.5-i386, solaris-2.5-sun4m, and
	sunos-4.1.4-sun4m
  </pre>

  <hr width=60%>

  <topic Authors and Maintenance>

  <Meta-HTML> was designed and implemented by Brian J. Fox
  (<email bfox@ai.mit.edu>).<br>
  It is owned by <a href="http://www.ua.com/">Universal Access Inc.</a>,
  and is released under
  <a href="http://www.metahtml.com/COPYING.html">terms identical to the
  GPL</a>. The programs are maintained by <a href="http://www.ua.com/~bfox/">
  Brian J. Fox</a>, <a href="http://www.ua.com/~hqm/">Henry
  Minsky</a>, and <a href="http://www.ua.com/~jarlath/">Jarlath O' Carroll</a>
  at Universal Access Inc.

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