From 166f1eb93224acd22f28d04901d018adec197c92 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Leif Stensson <leif@lysator.liu.se>
Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 22:47:09 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] The old ANNOUNCE file was getting obsolete in some ways, and
 tended to digress into topics that really belonged in a readme or similar, so
 here is a new and more to-the-point ANNOUNCE file. (The old feature list is
 largely retained with some layout adjustments.)

Rev: ANNOUNCE:1.10
---
 .gitattributes |   1 +
 ANNOUNCE       | 159 +++++++++++--------------------------------------
 2 files changed, 37 insertions(+), 123 deletions(-)

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
index a1cc098995..b7743da340 100644
--- a/.gitattributes
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ testfont binary
 # Files containing CVS ids follow.
 # Remove the corresponding line before committing
 # changes to these files.
+/ANNOUNCE foreign_ident
 /Makefile foreign_ident
 /bin/export.pike foreign_ident
 /bin/extract.pike foreign_ident
diff --git a/ANNOUNCE b/ANNOUNCE
index 6a802b10e3..62cca3511b 100644
--- a/ANNOUNCE
+++ b/ANNOUNCE
@@ -1,23 +1,9 @@
-Pike 7.3 developer version
+PIKE 7.X ANNOUNCEMENT
+$Id: ANNOUNCE,v 1.10 2002/04/06 20:47:09 leif Exp $ 
 
-While still young, Pike matured over the last few years, and
-development is co-ordinated by a team at Roxen Internet Software AB.
-Pike is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It is, and
-will continue to be, freely distributed. Briefly, this means that you are
-free to use and modify the source code in any way you please, see the
-file COPYING for details. Roxen Internet Software maintains the right
-to the brand name and the copyright, guaranteeing that Pike will be
-continuously developed and enhanced, and remain free software.
-
-Pike is easily learned, and just as easily used to develop powerful
-applications. Pike is designed to be useful and powerful. As the
-syntax of Pike is similar to that of C, most programmers will find it
-easy to use. As Pike is a high-level, interpreted and modular
-object-oriented language, powerful applications can be rapidly
-developed. Pike has evolved rather than been designed. The changes to
-Pike that have been made have been guided by its users' needs. In
-general, the better you get to know Pike, the more you will appreciate
-it, from a users perspective.
+Pike is an interpreted, object-oriented programming language with a
+syntax reminiscent of C and Java, and freely available and distributable
+under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
 
 Pike is just as suitable for intricate and large applications as for
 creating use-once scripts. When needed, you can also write
@@ -26,110 +12,37 @@ libraries. This is transparent to the module's users; the modules
 written in C and those written in Pike are accessed in exactly the
 same way.
 
-A list of pros and cons with Pike follows:
+Some Pike highlights:
 
-        + General Purpose Programming Language 
-	+ Freely distributed under GPL
-        + Interpreted - No compilation and linking needed to run code
-        + Object Oriented - Straightforward and powerful object
+    + Freely distributable under GPL
+    + Interpreted - no compilation and linking needed to run code
+    + Object Oriented - straightforward and powerful object
 	  orientation, including multiple inheritance
-        + Modular - Extendible with modules written in C or Pike
-        + Powerful - High-level language, concise code
-        + Incremental - Allows on-the-fly modifications and recompilations
-        + Source Code Available - To promote sharing of useful code
-        + Portable - Platform independent and available on most flavors of Unix
-	  At present the following platforms are supported:
-	  
-	     Solaris 2.5.1 & up (Sun SPARC & Intel x86) 
-             Tru64
-             AIX 4.3, 5L
-             IRIX 6.5
-             FreeBSD 4.0
-             HP-UX 11.00 
-             Linux Red Hat 4.2, 5.2, 6.1, 7.1 and others (Intel x86)
-
-        + Powerful, Flexible and Efficient Data Types
-        + Automatic Memory Management
-        + Scalable - as useful for small scripts as for powerful and
+    + Modular - extendible with modules written in C or Pike
+    + Powerful - high-level language, concise code
+    + Incremental - allows on-the-fly modifications and recompilations
+    + Source Code Available - promoting sharing of useful code
+    + Portable - Platform independent and available on most common
+      flavors of Unix, as well as Windows.
+    + Powerful, Flexible and Efficient Data Types
+    + Automatic Memory Management
+    + Scalable - as useful for small scripts as for powerful and
 	  complex applications.
-        + Text Processing - e.g. for filtering
-        + Exception Handling
-        + Multi-Threaded Application Development Possible
-
-How Pike relates to other programming languages:
-	
-        + Optimized - Faster run-times than Perl, Python, tcl and Java
-        + Faster Development than using C or C++
-        + C-like Syntax - Easy to learn
-
-Below you will find a list of some desired but missing features, or
-cons, of Pike. Pike is still under development and the goal is to
-incorporate those in future versions.
-
-        - No Pike native compiler or debugger available
-        - Not optimal for heavy numeric processing jobs
-        - Limited range of special effect image filters for image
-          processing
-
-
-Some successful applications using Pike include:
-
-        + Network Applications - as Client/Server applications
-          e.g. the Roxen Challenger Server and a range of server extensions
-	       Mail Gateways
-	       Client/server Protocol Implementations
-	       Multi-User-Dungeons
-        + System Administration Tools & Utilities - Even as quick one-shots
-	  e.g. adduser or adddomain scripts that setup users/domains 
-	       Real-time Client/Server Status Monitor
-	+ Assorted Text Processing Utilities 
-        + CGI Programs
-
-Pike is distributed accompanied by a set of modules, some of which are
-described below.
-
-
-Image - Image Processing Module
-
-The Image module lets you perform common image manipulation and
-processing operations from Pike programs. The supported operations
-include cutting and pasting, scaling, rotation, linear filtering of
-most kinds, rendering text, etc. Anti-aliasing can be used when
-performing any kind of drawing operation. Using the Image module, you
-can automate jobs that would otherwise have required tedious work in
-an interactive image processing program such as Adobe PhotoShop.
-
-
-Sql - Interface to SQL Databases 
-
-The SQL interface makes it possible to use common SQL databases from
-within your applications. It includes support for mSQL, MySQL, Postgres,
-Oracle and ODBC.
-
-
-MIME - Multimedia Internet Mail Extension Module
-
-This module makes it easy to create and decode e-mail, including
-attachments. 
-
-
-Gz - Data Compression Module
-
-With this module you can compress data. Its name is slightly
-misleading, as it uses ZLIB. ZLIB uses the same compression algorithm
-as gzip, but the format for the compressed data is not compatible with
-gzip.
-
-
-Crypto - Cryptographic Toolkit
-
-The crypto toolkit is a set of objects implementing various
-cryptographic algorithms, as well as objects used to glue the other
-objects together. The toolkit includes block ciphers AES, IDEA, DES
-(including tripple DES) and CAST, the RC4 stream cipher, the hash
-functions MD5 and SHA, and the public key cryptography algorithm
-RSA. It also includes a some randomness sources.
-
-The toolkit can be used for most kinds of cryptographic applications,
-including encrypted network connections, as well as encryption of
-files or other data. 
+    + Text Processing - e.g. for filtering
+    + Exception Handling
+    + Multi-Threaded Application Development Possible
+    + Easy-to-Learn C-like Syntax
+
+The standard Pike distribution comes with a number of modules for
+various useful purposes. Among these are:
+
+    + Image processing with support for several graphic file
+          formats (such as JPEG, PNM, PNG, TIFF and IFF), and
+          numerous image manipulation functions
+    + Cryptographic functions, including SSL support
+    + Database interface to several common SQL databases,
+          including MySQL and Oracle
+    + Embedding interfaces for Java and Perl
+
+Some other modules include support for MIME, Gz, Gmp, Gdbm, GTK,
+XML, and regular expressions.
-- 
GitLab