ICI News
January 2003
Phew, a long time between updates! The news is that Tim has released the first version of ICI 4. This is a pretty major reworking of the interpreter's internals and adds many new features such as threading, a new, more efficient, allocator, reworking of hashing and many other changes that improve performance. The documentation has also been substantially improved. At present the release is really only for Windows systems however now I (Andy Newman) have some time I'll get things working on BSD and Mac OS X. Following that is an overhaul of the modules (which are now more important than before).September 2001
A bit of a new look for the web-site. Also it is now has a new "main" address http://atrn.org/ici/. This will be mirrored at the zeta.org.au address (and at a number of other places too).The module collection now has a place on the web-site with documentation for various modules taking shape.
There are various new links on the left-hand side of the page too. Hopefully this will make things a little easier to find. Some of the links take you off-site, others embed the off-site pages in the right-hand side frame. Some browsers may have problems with the "Back" button, I'm sorry.
July 2001
A new release, 3.0.1, is out, this is the head of the current CVS tree and contains the latest bug fixes. The ICI module collection also has a new release, 0.2.0, which includes a number of extra modules and enhancements to the existing modules. Further work on the module collection continues with plans for better FreeBSD ports support and at least some documentation for all modules.April 2001
A Mac OS X port/configuration has now been added to the CVS tree. This is a basic Unix ICI interpreter with dynamic loading support. Major modules have been ported (XML being a notable omission at this stage as expat doesn't agree with Apple's gcc). The port has not been used extensively and doesn't provide any Mac OS X specific features (yet) but will be worked on in the future (I must confess, I bought a Mac :)The Gtk-based debugger is on hold for the time being. Work and a new Macintosh have interfered. Some of the core internals needed re-working to suit a new interface so a new design is being worked on. The Mac is the target however the Gtk front-end will also be developed (might have got a Mac but I didn't get rid of my FreeBSD machines).
March 2001
It's been a while between updates. Sorry. Module development continues with the results available via SourceForge .The Gtk module is substantially enhanced and now has an OO interface using ICI 3's class mechanism. Real applications can be written. I've been adopting a lazy evaluation method of adding to the module. When I hit something I need it gets added.
A GUI-debugger for Unix ICI has been written (by me) and is getting some work before being released to all. It's written in C using Gtk and uses a debugging interpreter as a backend to execute the user's program (allowing other interfaces to be used).
Other new modules include a PostgreSQL interface, large precision artithmetic support via the MIT BigNum package and support generating and handling UUID's. Some existing modules have had bug fixes or enhancements. The serialisation module can now serialise classes and methods correctly and the network module now implements write buffering for socket files.
The core language remains largely stable with only minor additions or corrections. An issue with the debugger interface introduced with the new style function objects has been corrected and Unix systems now support signal handling via a new intrinsic function.
As always the CVS head of development at the ICI SourceForge project is where to get the latest stuff. You need the ici and ici-modules checkouts from CVS to obtain everything.