[Http-replicator-users] working towards replicator 4.0

[Gertjan v. Z. <ger...@gm...>]

Hello world!

Here is a message from replicator HQ to the shining new
http-replicator-users list, mainly to see if it works. If you're reading
this then I guess that means it does. I also send a CC to all the people
that have expressed some interest in replicator in the past so don't be
surprised to receive this when you didn't register - yet.

It's been a while since I posted my last news entry on the website, "3.1 is
in the works, stay tuned!" or something; I can't check since the old website
was taken off line after people started promoting medicine on it - and the
admin did not really seem to object. Actually, I did, only I seemed to have
misplaced my login and found myself locked out of my own website,
unfortunately, unlike most of the rest of the world. Then again, can't say I
really mind. I had long grown tired of Zope and I'm quite relieved to be
back at the static html that I can trust. Or so I hope.

The new host [1] is Sourceforge, I'm very pleased to say, which brings some
additional nice features such as svn version control [2] and this mailing
list - something I long thought would be a very nice thing to have. The past
years I have received quite a lot of mails from people reporting bugs,
requesting features, or simply informing about the state of the project and
how exactly is 3.1 coming along? And as much as enjoyed receiving those
mails, I think it would have saved a lot of people the effort if I could
have just replied that "no, replicator is not dead, only I'm so busy lately
that (...) but surely very soon now (...)" etcetera to /world like I do now.


So.. what is the state of the project? It's looking good, really.
After 3.0I decided to rewrite from scratch because the current code is
ugly (beyond
repair) and I could not fit all the new features in its rigid frame. So I
did. And then when my Master's thesis and later PhD started draining the
time out of my life the thing just stood there gathering dust. That did
annoy me a lot, because I'm actually rather proud of the new design and I
would very much like to bring it out in the open. So last week I decided to
dig up the code and resume work, though slowly, towards what will be version
4.0. Here are some of the new features to expect:

   - FTP support
   - bandwidth shaping
   - IPv6 capable
   - download resuming (server side)

All this has already worked, I seem to recall, only I'm not too confident
about the current state of things. I will go over it in the coming weeks
(promise). Currently at least simply HTTP caching seems to be functional. If
you're curious of replicator's new look (still text based, don't worry) then
download a snapshot from svn and try it out. Just, for now, please don't
send any bug reports because I know there will be many. I will need some
time to go through all code and fix the really big things. Meanwhile, from
now on, this list will be my main communication channel so if you're
interested in this project I suggest you subscribe [3] to stay posted.

And that's all for now; I hope to have more news soon. Meanwhile, comments /
feedback / words of encouragement are most appreciated, as always.

GJ


   1. http://sourceforge.net/projects/http-replicator
   2. http://http-replicator.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/http-replicator
   3. https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/http-replicator-users