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This release is a bigger deal than usual. Highlights:

• Thanks to Tyler, we have a release of E 0.8.0 in addition to daffE 0.8.0.
• Simple E-language distributed programming, as explained in http://www.erights.org/elang/concurrency/introducer.html works without PLSs or user configuration when there aren't any firewalls in the way. MarcS' Secure EChat application shows how tiny a secure distributed app can be in this release.

Many comm issues remain. In expected order:

	reviving and completing simple VLSs
	installing permanent VLSs at Chez Messick and The Bunker
	native code for evading Java's insane DNS caching policy.
	providing firewall crossing mechanisms
		from new configuration parameters to cross simple NATs
		to Bill's http tunnelling

• Elmer is much improved -- many annoying bugs have been killed, including all known indentation bugs. It's actually rather usable now.
• The EParser is generated by byacc/java (Berkeley yacc enhanced with an option for outputting java). The parser code it generates has huge tables that java compiles into huge initialization methods. Unfortunately, these methods were too big for some virtual machines and IDEs (and probably exceeded the spec on allowable method size). Thanks to MarcS, the parser is now broken up into smaller pieces that don't cause these problems.
• Much painful release engineering work has been done: Directories are reorganized to something more sensible (but no package reorganization) Most Makefiles have disappeared The downloads are much smaller 2.4MB for the binary distribution (including the swing jar) .9MB for the source distribution (excluding the swing jar) The binary distribution's Setup installs "e" and "elmer" icons under windows that use the Microsoft jvm that comes with IE4 or win98.

Unfortunately, the corresponding support for building and installing under unix has gone stale and needs to be redone. This is high priority.

• At least the daffE form of this release is known to work under Microsoft IE4 jvm on Win95 Win98 jvm (may be identical to previous??) Javasoft JDK 1.2 Symantec Cafe 3.0 (I believe jdk1.1.6 <= cafe3.0 < jdk1.2) IBM VisualAge Previous versions of E or daffE were known to work under Javasoft JDK >= 1.1.6 Symantec Cafe 2.5a I expect the current release still does, but I haven't tested this.

All the above was tested on Win95 or Win98. Still to come:

	JDK1.2 on unix 
	Kaffe on Win*
	Kaffe on unix
	Now that they have all those pretty colors, Mac

Are any of you actively using Kaffe?

• Using the link-checker built into Dreamweaver, I think I repaired all the broken links. Let me know if you see any remaining ones.

  ---

At what point should we announce E on slashdot or freshmeat? When should we promote to the cypherpunks? I think we're getting close. We shouldn't promote until people can have a rewarding experience with the download. VLSs are important, but they aren't crucial until we've revived the persistence logic or are trying to cross firewalls.

Proposed prerequisites:

	The unix build and install issues need to be fixed 
		(volunteers appreciated!)
	I need to write my long delayed concurrency chapter
	MarcS needs to post Secure EChat.  

Anything else??

	Towards jurisdiction-free commerce,
	--MarkM

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