[XPS-announce] XPS Update

[Reid S. <re...@re...>]

XPS Folks,

Several things have happened over the last month of general interest
that I thought you'd like to know about.

        * Web Site. The main web site at
          http://extprosys.sourceforge.net/ (also available at
          http://x10sible.org/) has been completely revised and
          reorganized. It now uses a simple PHP theme and contains more
          sections. Of particular note is a complete release plan for
          XPS through version 1.0, access to project status and news,
          and sections for descriptions of the architecture and
          components of XPS.
        * Formation of XSI. I have recently incorporated a company named
          eXtensible Systems, Inc. to foster the development of XPS. The
          company will seek investment capital to speed XPS development
          and will offer commercial services and products based on XPS.
          The XSI web site is not complete, but you can preview it at
          http://www.x10sys.com/ ).
        * SaveSomeGeeks.com. Inspired by the success of
          www.savekaryn.com, I decided to see if XPS could benefit from
          donations by Internet users. I don't know if this experiment
          will go anywhere, but you can read my e-panhandling attempt at
          http://savesomegeeks.com/. All net proceeds will go directly
          to funding XPS development work.  Help me promote this site
          and it might just turn into some contract $ for XPS
          developers.
        * Architecture Changes. I've changed the architecture slightly
          to include a general services daemon (XPSD) separate from the
          XVM.  The XPSD will provide software development services to
          XPS developers. I have also renamed XVMSH as XPSH to more
          accurately reflect its character as an interface into the
          entire XPS system rather than just the XVM. I've also started
          to document some of the extensions to XPS that we will tackle
          early: User Interface, Virtual Reality Programming, Database
          Interface, and Logic Programming.
        * ADT Design. I have started an Abstract Data Types library to
          provide the basic ADTs needed by XPS that are compatible with
          its memory system. This includes things like lists, stacks,
          queues, maps, hash tables, etc.  I have a number of design
          issues with this module and could really use some help
          rationalizing it.  Anyone interested in this area, please
          contact me soon as this is what I'm working next. Its needed
          to support the compiler's symbol table which is holding up
          release 0.2.0.

That's it for now. I would appreciate your feedback on the websites and
other plans.

Best Regards,

Reid.