
		       Meta-HTML 5.03 Source Release

Version 5.03 of the Meta-HTML Web Language distribution is now
available for download from:

	http://www.metahtml.com/download

It should be available from prep.ai.mit.edu, and other GNU mirror
sites within the next two weeks.

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			     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 this white paper
[http://www.metahtml.com/documentation/manifesto.html].

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 interpreter, which dynamically processes any
Meta-HTML statements to produce a final HTML page that is delivered
to the browser.

The source distribution provides several different interpreter options:

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

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	      Meta-HTML Changes in 5.03 from 5.02

	* All reported bugs have been fixed.  I'm happy to say that
	  just haven't been many bugs reported!

	* The server is now able to perform DNS caching -- this should
	  improve request response time for  sites that have client name
	  resolution turned on (the default).  It is controlled by
	  a variable in the server config file.

	* A new set of documented array operators, including:
	  array-append, array-member, array-size, array-add-unique,
	  array-shift, array-concat, foreach, and a new "sort"
	  function.

	* Complete support for mSQL 2.x as well as mSQL 1.x.  Many
	  bugs were found and fixed in this code.

	* Improvements to various functions, documentation for same.
	  Specifically, cgi-exec, sort, with-open-stream, stream-get,
	  page-debug, system-error-output, and debugging-output have
	  all improved.

	* Dynamically loaded modules allow C language extensions to be
	  added to the running Meta-HTML interpreter.  Several useful
	  examples are included.

	* FastCGI support for all platforms now built automatically.

	* Better configuration mechanism allows compilation on many
	  more machine/OS's than before.

	* Again, more and improved documentation.

	* More control over cookie manipulation and session IDs.

	* The ability to include binary representations of Meta-HTML
	  source code directly in the compiled Engine, Server,
	  Debugger, and Standalone Processor.  See libmhtml/bootstrap.mhtml.

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		      E-Mail Addresses and URLs

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

There is a user mailing list: metahtml-users@metahtml.com.  You can
subscribe on the Web [http://www.metahtml.com/E-Mail/], or by
sending mail to metahtml-users-request@metahtml.com.
 
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		       Authors and Maintenance

Meta-HTML was designed and implemented by Brian J. Fox (bfox@ai.mit.edu).
Meta-HTML is owned by Universal Access Inc., and is released under
terms nearly identical to the GPL.  The code and utilities are
maintained by Brian J. Fox and Jarlath O' Carroll at Universal Access
Inc.
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